Automotive Gear Manufacturing “Automotive manufacturers will always prefer to hob a part
if possible” to initiate the making of a gear, said GMTA’s Knoy. “This is due to the speed of the process and the tool life associ- ated with the hobbing process.” GMTA, however, offers an alter- native from Profilator, which uses a process called scudding. “Scudding,” added Friedrich, “is a process very similar to hobbing, but it uses shaper-cutter-style tools. Therefore scudding does not have the interference limits as a hob cutter, which allows for many more applications.” The advantage of scudding compared to shaping is that it reduces cycle time and allows dry cutting, he said.
“As a general rule,” Knoy added, “if a part can be hobbed or shaped, we can scud it.” GMTA is not the only company to offer such a process. “Profilator makes the only scudding machine,” said Knoy, “but others are developing similar processes and are using the name gear skiving. Gear skiving is widely known in the industry as the process of recutting a gear in the hardened state with a special skiving hob. Profilator has a two to three
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year lead on the development of this scudding process when compared to other companies.”
Quicker Grinding Times Andreas Mehr, technology development engineer at Lieb-
herr-Verzahntechnik GmbH (Kempten, Germany), said that his company’s customers are looking to improve their grinding times while maintaining or improving quality. If gears can be ground more efficiently, he noted, “for example with dressable CBN tools,” or if grinding a large module—instead of profile grinding—can be generated, “then these customers will have a big productivity advantage over their competition.” In addition, Scott Yoders, vice president of sales at Lieb-
herr’s US operations (Liebherr Gear Technology Inc.; Saline, MI), said that chamfering and deburring systems integrated within gear hobbing machines “have been expanded upon by Liebherr to include separate parallel-processing stations” for both chamfering and deburring that do not increase total cycle time.
As well as using higher speed machining, carbide hobbing and honing to increase productivity, Star SU offers a holistic approach to gear making. “Improvements come from the abil- ity to understand machines, tools, applications and services as a completely integrated process,” the company’s Goodfel- low said. To that end Star SU offers what it calls “Total Life Cycle Management, which includes resharpening and recoat- ing of precision cutting tools, as well as maintenance services of gear related machinery.”
Is there a Material Difference?
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While the companies are unanimous in seeing precision and increased productivity as the drivers of gear making to- day, there is little consensus on what—if any—impact the new generation of transmissions will have on the materials used to make gears. Gleason’s Schaeferling, for instance, does “not see a clear
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | April 2013
trend for different steel materials [in gears] because manufac- turers do not want to incur the higher costs of higher alloying.” He added that the size and shape of gears is not undergoing any remarkable changes “and therefore the existing solutions are a good basis” for the future. Schaeferling does, though, see the “constant development of new materials to increase the capabilities of tools for precutting and finish cutting operations.” As noted above, GMTA’s Knoy sees the need for new mate- rials for both tools and gears.
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