Gear Production

SEP 2015

Gear Production

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September 2015—13 Autodesk, autodesk.com Dassault Systèmes, 3ds.com GWJ Technology GmbH, gwj.de Involute Simulation Softwares Inc., hygears.com KISSsoft AG, kisssoft.ch PTC Creo, creo.ptc.com Romax Technology, romaxtech.com Siemens, siemens.com cylindrical gear pair module. Two other modules were introduced for calculating the geometry of single cylindrical gears (external and internal). Also, there are new CAD plugins for Inventor, Solid Edge, and SolidWorks that support 3D gear rack modeling. Downloadable Design HyGears version 4.0 from Quebec-based Involute Simulation Softwares Inc. is a standalone program with "all the design, analysis, and manufacturing tools needed from idea to production," according to Claude Gosselin, president of the company. Along with design capabilities for all sorts of gears, including zerol and conifex, herringbone, and face-milled and cyclo-palloid spiral-bevel gears, this 3D engineering software can create fve-axis CNC machining programs for cutting the gears on AB-, AC-, BA-, and BC-type CNC machines, using face mill, conifex dish type, CoSIMT (spherical), end mill, or ball mill tools. HyGears can generate coordinate measuring machine (CMM) target fles, as well as use CMM data to evaluate the quality of a gear, calculate corrective settings, or reverse engineer an unknown gear set. "The initial design of a gear set requires very little data input as numerous default values can be computed as a starting point," says Mr. Gosselin. Two functions in particular help out in the design, analysis and optimization of gear sets. Tooth contact analysis (TCA) provides the shape and location of the bearing pattern, ease off, and transmission error. Loaded tooth contact analysis (LTCA) calculates contact stresses, the extent of the bearing pattern, the transmission error and bending stresses to assess the gear's behavior under load. Engineers can improve the initial designs at any time using specialized operators that can defne each tooth fank independently. With the internal geometry editor, engineers can also modify blank geometry, cutter blade, and machine setting data. Modifcations can also be made through advanced user- guided functions. At any time, HyGears can also produce a PDF-formatted summary of the gear design, including geometry, strength calculations, machine settings, TCA, LTCA, blank and worst- case graphic output. Gear sets are displayed in WYSIWYG; simulations show the movements of cutting machines and tools. The program can run up to 20 combinations of torque, E, P, G and shaft and alignment angles, and display selected results graphically and as text. While HyGears does not have an internal FEA solver, geometry created within the program can be exported as a standard Patran fle. A built-in STEP interface provides direct export to most CAD and CAM systems. Other advanced features include fnite strips—a subset of the FEA that provides quick computation and display of bending stresses and deformations, providing the LTCA with very precise tooth stiffness for exact tooth load- sharing calculations—and an integrated contact element, which allows for the calculation of the contact stresses of any tooth geometry. Universal fve-axis CNC output converts the machine settings of any face-milled spiral bevel and hypoid gear generator to X, Y, Z coordinates and B and C rotations, and spiral-bevel gear sets can be generated in which cutter tilt is not needed to achieve good bearing pattern and transmission error. HyGears runs on Microsoft Windows XP or later.The most recent version of HyGears, build 404.50-457, has been available since June. HyGears is downloadable from the company website, and a demo version is valid for 15 days, with some features restricted.

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