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Theoretical and experimental study on influencing factors of rabbit ear in the gear forced throughfeed rolling process

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Abstract

Attainable gear quality is a crucial criterion for the broad industrial application of the gear roll-forming process. One of the main defects in gear rolling process is the rabbit ear, which affects the effective tooth depth of the formed workpiece and the material utilization rate. To further understand the influencing factors of rabbit ear, this paper proposes analytical models of relative sliding distance and frictional shear stress to explain the material flow on the tooth flank of the workpiece. The influence of rolling parameters (rotational speed of rolling tools, lubrication, rotational direction of rolling tools), number of workpiece teeth, and positive addendum modified rolling tools on rabbit ear was studied theoretically based on the established models and a case study. Finally, experimental results were displayed to verify the above-mentioned analysis. The results reveal that better lubrication, higher rotational speed, and reverse rotation of rolling tools contribute to weakening the rabbit ear effect. Moreover, the rabbit ear height in case of z2 = 70 decreases by 14.2% compared to that in case of z2 = 46 due to reduced gear ratio. Additionally, rabbit ear height formed by rolling tools with a positive addendum modification coefficient of 1.0 amounts to approximately 48.3% of that generated by rolling tools having standard teeth in the gear forced throughfeed rolling process.

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Data availability

The authors declared that the data and material are available.

Abbreviations

v ti :

tangential velocities of rolling tool (i = 1) and workpiece (i = 2)

w i :

angular velocity of rolling tool (i = 1) and workpiece (i = 2)

r Qi :

distance between point Q and point O1 and O2

r bi :

base circle radius of rolling tool (i = 1) and workpiece (i = 2)

α Qi :

pressure angle of point Q on tooth flanks of rolling tool (i = 1) and workpiece (i = 2)

v 21 :

relative sliding velocity of tooth flanks at the contact point Q

Δs :

relative sliding distance of tooth flanks

Δi :

the tooth height increment of formed workpiece

l i :

length of segment PQ

α′ :

working pressure angle of tooth flanks

λ :

gear ratio and equal to z1/z2

z 1 :

number of rolling tools teeth

z 2 :

number of workpiece teeth

a :

half-width of strip contact area of two parallel cylinders

B :

length of strip contact area

R*:

equivalent radius of curvature

E*:

equivalent modulus

R i :

radii of cylinders 1 and 2

υ i :

Poisson ratios of cylinders 1 and 2

E i :

modules of elasticity of cylinders 1 and 2

P n :

normal force

P t :

circumferential force

A :

standard center distance between cylinders 1 and 2

A′ :

actual center distance between cylinders 1 and 2

μ :

friction coefficient

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.52205401), Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province (No. 201901D211292), Award Grants for Outstanding Doctors Working in Shanxi Province (No. 20202036), and Taiyuan University of Science and Technology Scientific Research Initial Founding (TYUST SRIF) (No. 20192022).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Ziyong Ma, Yinghu Tian, Fuquan Zhang & Jin Liu

  2. Shanxi Province Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Heavy-load Equipment & Robot System, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Ziyong Ma

  3. High-end Equipment and Rail Transit Technology R&D Center of Haian Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Haian, 226600, China

    Ziyong Ma

  4. College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China

    Yuanxin Luo

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  1. Ziyong Ma
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  2. Yinghu Tian
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  4. Jin Liu
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Contributions

Ziyong Ma contributed to the conception of the research; Yinghu Tian and Ziyong Ma performed the experiment; Jin Liu, Fuquan Zhang, and Ziyong Ma contributed significantly to analysis and manuscript preparation; Ziyong Ma performed the data analyses and wrote the manuscript; Yuanxin Luo helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions.

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Correspondence to Ziyong Ma.

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Ma, Z., Tian, Y., Zhang, F. et al. Theoretical and experimental study on influencing factors of rabbit ear in the gear forced throughfeed rolling process. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 127, 4641–4658 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11787-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11787-2

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