Prediction method for the three-dimensional surface roughness in internal gear polish honing of the aeronautic cylindrical gear

ObjectiveInternal gear polish honing has the characteristics of improving tooth surface quality and reducing transmission noise, which can effectively improve the service performance and fatigue life of gears. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the surface formation mechanism of internal gear polish honing of aerospace gears and guide the optimization of process parameters, a positive prediction method for the three-dimensional surface roughness of internal gear polish honing was proposed.MethodsFirstly, based on the principles of internal conjugate meshing and abrasive cutting mechanisms, the cutting depth and cutting number of abrasive grains driven by honing process parameters were derived. Secondly, the progressive removal of micro-asperities on the tooth surface by abrasives during honing was equivalently mapped into a "meshing contact-material removal" signal processing operator applied to the 3D height data. Then, through adaptive denoising and morphology-preserving correction of the measured initial tooth surface, the material removal process was simulated. Finally, iterative calculations were performed using Matlab software to obtain the post-honing 3D surface height data and predict the roughness.ResultsValidated by gear honing experiments, the average prediction errors for 12 groups of roughness parameters <italic>S</italic>_a、<italic>S</italic>_q and <italic>S_z</italic> are 6.41%, 5.30%, and 5.86%, respectively, with the maximum error not exceeding 12.76%. The analysis indicates that surface roughness decreases with an increase in honing wheel speed and increases with a decrease in the cutting rate. This research provides a quantitative reference for optimizing process parameters in internal gear polish honing and offers a novel proactive prediction method for the precision machining of complex curved surfaces.