EcoGear - Environmental Friendly Bevel Gear Production by Using Pre-Forged Blanks

Background

Conventional process chains for bevel gear manufacturing start with forged blanks which have a rotational symmetric geometry. This project will focus on an alternative approach in which pre-forged blanks are used. This allows substantial material savings of ca. 20% and reduces the material that needs to be removed during bevel gear milling by ca. 87%.

Challenge

Using pre-forged components also introduces new challenges in the process chain like the interrupted cut in turning of the face cone or the machining of forging scale during bevel gear cutting. Furthermore a precise positioning of the tool in the pre-forged tooth gap in the machining of the teeth would be necessary. The hardening distortions during heat treatment may also be affected by using pre-forged blanks due to the banded structure and the segregations in the forging. The goal of this project is to develop new methods to overcome these challenges.

Our solution

To reach the goal of the project, a novel tool for hot forging of bevel gears (WP1), a novel method to design the gear cutting process (WP2, WP5), a novel coating for the specific requirements of face milling of forging scale (WP5), a novel reference system for bevel gears (WP3) and a novel approach to reduce the grinding stock based on the prediction of hardening distortions (WP 7 & 8) will be developed.

Project partners

- KTH - PMH Application Lab
- KTH - Department of Production Engineering (IIP)
- Swerim
- Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen University
- Scania
- Buderus
- GF System 3R
- Oerlikon Balzers

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