Tribology International 38 (2005) 243248 www.elsevier.

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Producing gear teeth with high form accuracy and ne surface nish using water-lubricated chemical reactions
K. Oobayashia, K. Iriea, F. Hondab,*
b a AISIN AW CO., LTD, 10 Takane, Fujii-cho, Anjo, Aichi 444-1192, Japan Toyota Technological Institute, 2 Hisakata, Tempaku, Nagoya 468-8511, Japan

Abstract A new method was investigated for high-accuracy ne nishing of gear teeth surfaces using a water-lubricated tribo-chemical technique. A pair of shaved gears with rather low surface roughness was rotated in water lubricant for 30 min so that the gear tooth surface contacting the mating tooth was worn to a mirror surface and ideal tooth prole, due to the mechano-chemical mild erosion of the contact area. The wear rate was 2.0 mm per 20,000 meshings, corresponding to a wear of one atomic radius thickness per meshing. Oxidation of the steel surface by water molecules is proposed as the dominant wear process. Operation noise from the gear pair rotation was drastically reduced to lower than about 1015 dB compared to conventionally machined gear surfaces (30 dB in average), as a result of the wear of the tooth surface to form a best-t prole. The noise increased with further processing of the gear pair. Thus, there is an appropriate number of rotations for suitable surface wear treatment. This new and simple procedure for surface treatment assures saving in energy, and does not require expensive honing techniques or high-accuracy grinding tools. The wear mechanisms used in this process are discussed along with the application of the technique to other processes for precision nishing. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Water-lubrication; Tribo-chemistry; Mild wear; Fine nishing; Gear tooth; Low noise; Mirror surface

1. Introduction For the machining of accurate and ne gear teeth, the numerically best-t prole of the tooth has been developed using sophisticated calculations [1,2]. Manufacturing of the tooth shape near a best-t involute curve prole can be carried out through the rough cutting, shaving, honing, and ne nishing procedures using rather high-accuracy cutting tools. Additional and nal nishing involves a running-in process to obtain the best-t pair contact alignment and of the lowest noise during gear revolution. Each of these processes and the manufacturing time accounts for a great percentage of the total energy of gear production. For example, after the honing process, a variety of GRz 2.5 mm still remains between the produced surface prole and the numerically ideal one. Only a small fraction of a tooth surface requires a highaccuracy prole to contact the mating gear surface, so
* Corresponding author. 0301-679X/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.triboint.2004.08.022

the high-accuracy nishing can be limited to a small contact area. The remaining area (outside of the contacted area) on the tooth can remain relatively rough. The important parameter to monitor the tness of the surface prole is the noise level of the pair of gears in operation. Many experiments and simulation studies [3] have been carried out to reduce the noise level but are not completed due to the non-linear combined effects of mutual relationships among complicated shapes, vibration and friction. An additional objective of the surface nishing of the gear would be improvement of the mechanical strength of the nished surface layers. A high-energy uctuating load applied to the gear tooth in operation induces surface fatigue or undesirable exfoliation of the stressed dedendum surface layers on the gear [4,5]. Micro-cracks on the machined surface must usually be minimized to maintain the longer service life of the gear. In this report, we present the results of a wear process by which a pair of gear teeth are worked in water, thereby using the tribo-chemical oxidation for the ne machining.

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position and tooth prole at the contact area. The wear position and prole of the contacted surface clearly showed great changes as a function of the number of gear meshings (i.e. calculated from the number of revolutions). The numerically ideal involute curve of the gear was referred to, in evaluating the wear surface.

Fig. 1. Systematic diagram of the test bench for water-lubricated surface nishing.

3. Results and discussion 3.1. Surface roughness of worn teeth The surface roughness of the water-lubricated gear tooth (referred to as tribo-assisted oxidation for ne nishing: TOFF) is shown in Fig. 2, compared with surfaces after the procedures previous to TOFF. The rst row in Fig. 2 indicates the roughness along the prole direction (across the pitchline), and the second row indicates the lead direction (along the pitch-line) of the tooth, together with the quantitative expression of roughness Rz. These are results for a reference condition of 500 rpm, 415 N of load, and 20,000 revolutions. The contacted regions on the surface had a mirror surface (Rz 0.5 mm), much better than that before nishing (Rz 2.5 mm). The mirror-smooth area expanded to a larger area by increasing the number of gear revolution. In Fig. 3, the prole of (a) the shaved surface is shown, plus the results of (b) worn surface after 20,000 revolutions, and (c) after 50,000 revolutions. The straight lines in Fig. 3 indicate the ideal involute curve. The involute curve is exactly three-dimensional curve but mathematically expressed by a straight line to simplify the deviation of the measured surface from the ideal involute prole. Both ends of the gear prole are manufactured to deviate largely from the involute curve for smooth release of the load during meshings. Therefore, a prole closest to the straight line (excluding the both gear ends) in Fig. 3 is a best-t prole. A smooth prole closest to the ideal involute prole was obtained between 15,000 and 20,000 revolutions. Over this range, the entire tooth surface was smooth but the proles became worn beyond the calculated ideal involute curve by 50,000 revolutions, as is shown in Fig. 3(c).

We monitored the wear rate as a function of the number of teeth meshings and examined the wear process for obtaining the best conditions for the oxidation reaction with water [6].

2. Experimental procedure A pair of gears (120 mm in diameter) was mounted on a bench tester designed especially for the tribological and noise monitoring tests during rotation, using water as the lubricant. The apparatus is designed to apply a variable load between the drive and driven teeth (1901500 N). Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of the tester. The geometric alignment of the contacted position of each gear and the distance between the two gears are adjustable. Distilled water (1000 ml/min) was supplied continuously between the mating gear teeth under contact. The gears were not immersed in water, to avoid additional rotation resistance. The applied load, rotation rate, and noise level were measured continuously by sensors. The noise sensor signal was analyzed in the range from 0 to 10 KHz at the point closest to the gears. The gears were made of alloy steel (JIS SCM420H standard steel which almost corresponds SAE 5120, and DIN 20CR4), forged, and shaved to a surface roughness of Rz 2.5, and then carburized. The hardness of the curburized surface was 750 Hv. After testing at a given rotation number and load, the tooth surfaces were analyzed by a highaccuracy prolometer, measuring surface roughness, wear

Fig. 2. Surface roughness of the water-nished gear tooth, along and across the pitch-line. Average surface roughness before nishing and after honing and grinding is presented for reference.

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Fig. 3. Two-dimensional proles of the water-lubricated gears as a function of the number of mesh contacts. Proles across and along the pitch-line are presented.

Fig. 4 presents three-dimensional maps of the surfaces (a) before water-lubrication and (b) after 20,000 evolutions showing close to the best-t prole, while (c) reveals the over-worn surface after 50,000 revolutions. Fig. 4(b) indicates that the suitably treated tooth surface is very

smooth in local area with the mesoscopical roughness and matches well macroscopic involute curve. In Fig. 4(c), the roughness in local regions is still fairly smooth, but measurements show high waviness especially in dedendum. In addition to drive and driven gear surface proles,

Fig. 4. Three-dimensional surface prole of drive and driven surfaces. Excess wear is observed after 30,000 mesh contacts with the mating gear tooth.

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the third row in Fig. 4 indicates the mathematical summation of the two surface proles. Therefore, the third row do not show any real gear prole but realizes that the highest points in these maps are the closest points between the gears which come into contact at rst. The relatively smooth surface suggests mild wear. From the area of the mirror surface and proles before and after the wear-test operation, the wear rate was determined within an accuracy of G0.1 mm. The load was xed here at 415 N. The observed result of this wear rate was 2.0 mm per 20,000 revolutions, corresponding to a wear of 0.10 nm thickness in the surface layer per revolution. An average thickness of a single atomic radius of iron surface is thus removed only from the meshing area of the tooth. Fig. 5 shows the tooth prole after running under high load of 1132 N. The worn surface area was larger under increasing load in comparison with the results of the same number of meshings and load of 415 N, as is shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b). The wear rate, in term of thickness, however, was almost the same, equivalent as determined by the prole. Based on these results, the mating tooth surfaces apparently were deformed under high load and that the area of gear contact between the mating surfaces increased, yet the wear thickness on the surface did not change. In the contact mode examined here, a tooth surface mates once per gear revolution. The tooth pair in contact is not xed because each gear has different number of teeth. The best-t contact condition, therefore, is averaged on all

the tooth pair of the gear. It is reasonable to consider that the highest spot on the tooth surface comes into contact preferentially and undergoes mechano-chemical wear, depleting layer-by-layer [7,8] beginning from the top-most atomic layer on the tooth surfaces. By scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations, at least, no etch pit or micro-cracks were observed on the smooth contacted surfaces. The time interval between each mating until the next mating contact is 0.12 s at 500 rpm, and 0.01 s at 6000 rpm. This is long enough for the clean (intrinsic) iron surface to react with the surrounding water molecules, because the rate of water adsorption to a clean surface is known to be of the order of 1 ms (1 Langmuir). The surface top-most iron atoms are allowed to react with water molecules during one turn of the gear mating contact, and the reaction product layer is removed from the surface. We assumed that the surface structure is composed of FeO or FeOH bonds on the adsorbed surface of two-dimensional layer, because two-dimensional adsorbed structure cannot be dened as compounds such as FeO, Fe2O3, and Fe3O4 have been identied on the slid surfaces in water [6]. If reaction products were accumulated as oxide layers and formed crystalline oxides, multiplayer of oxides can be removed from the contacted area, due to weak shear strength in the oxide layers. In this contact condition, wear do not proceed layer-by-layer and do not make smooth metallic surface. In the relevant wear of gear surface, meshing number determined the wear rate as half-monolayer per

Fig. 5. Tooth proles as a result of high load contact. The mirror-nish area increased with the load, but the wear rate was almost equal to the result at low load.

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Fig. 6. The typical noise level observed on the test bench. First- and second-order noise decreased abruptly at minimum.

contact of the iron surface, on an average. The wear mechanism is still unclear by our experimental results but the surface observations suggested the wear proceed layerby-layer, which is different from the sliding tests in water. 3.2. Noise level of gear revolution The ideal smooth prole produced a minimum noise level under repeated meshing and unmeshing of the gear teeth surfaces. The noise level could, therefore, be an important diagnostic parameter in determining the most desirable surface prole. Fig. 6(a) shows a typical result of the rst- and second-order vibration observed on the TOFF tester. Starting from 25 dB of the rst-order vibration, the noise decreased to 12 dB at minimum, and the second-order noise showed the same decrease to 20,000 revolutions. The noise reduction of K13 dB on the test bench correspond to a noise reduction from 96 to 85 dB in an automatic transmission (AT) assembly (87 dB is the standard noise limit for compliance). The minimum noise appeared after about 20,000 revolutions from the test start for both vibration modes in the case of Fig. 6(a), but in some cases, the primary noise minimum was reached at 18,000 revolutions as shown in Fig. 6(b). For some specimens (c), even two minimum stages appeared in the secondary noise. If one presumes this to be due to some size-uctuation particular to various original specimens, at an average of between 15,000 and 27,000 meshings, a minimum noise would appear, and minor hump of secondary noise would

depend on the original surface prole. The noise drop by the TOFF treatment was rather drastic compared to other treatment such as honing and shaving, so the prole closest to the ideal one was very effective for noise suppression. When TOFF tested gears were placed into an AT assembly, the noise level was found to be lower than with conventional gears. This is shown in Fig. 7, which is a graph of gear noise as a function of gear revolution rate. Within the observed range of revolution rate, the noise levels were suppressed satisfactorily, especially the sympathetic vibrations at 700 and 1200 rpm. A small percentage of the tested specimens, however, showed almost the same noise level. This is probably due to misalignment of the gear pair and/or inhomogeneous deformation during transfer from the TOFF device to the AT assembly. The exact same geometric conguration on a TOFF device is very difcult to reproduce on the AT assembly; results showed some uctuation on the best-t contact reproduction. As has been indicated above, the best-t prole of a tooth appears after almost the same number of revolution: 15,00022,000. Thus, it is reasonable to consider that the three-dimensional best-t prole of the tooth produces the lowest noise condition. Monitoring of the vibration in the TOFF operation is therefore recommended. Operation beyond the minimum noise stage resulted in smooth surfaces but the worn prole emitted higher noise as before the TOFF treatment. In this report, we supplied plain distilled water to the gear surface mating points so that the reactions with water were obviously accelerated tribologically. In fact, an area on the gear surface not contacted is not oxidized or worn visually at least. No rust on the surface is observed after a few hours of running water. The wear rate of plain distilled water was suitable for controlling for the relevant purpose. For general application of this nishing technique to other complex shapes of surface and/or inner surface of work to be polished, one could use combinations of planetary gears, or smaller size rotators could be inserted inside the work. 4. Conclusions When water-lubricated boundary condition was used between gear teeth in nishing, a very smooth metallic surface was obtained as follows.

Fig. 7. Noise level observed on an automatic transmission assembly, after nishing treatment on the test bench.

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(1) The tooth surface was nished with a prole extremely close to the numerically designed best-t prole, or to a prole of best-t curve for a pair of gears. The mesh contact had a mirror nish. (2) The wear of the tooth surface proceeded layer-by-layer as a linear function of the number of mesh contacts and preferentially at the contact point or area. (3) The noise level abruptly decreased from 25 to 12 dB on the test bench at minimum, on the best-t tooth prole of the gear. The new procedure introduced in this study reduced the total energy for ne, high-accuracy nishing of gear teeth and other surfaces, with applying minimum shear stress on the surfaces.

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Acknowledgements The authors express their gratitude to AISIN AW Co, Ltd and Toyota-Shokki Co Ltd, for their generous nancial support for our study.