Bevel gears are widely used in various industrial applications, such as automotive, aerospace, and marine industries, due to their ability to transfer power between non-parallel shafts. The conventional manufacturing of bevel gears involves several time-consuming and costly processes, including gear blank preparation, gear cutting, and gear finishing. The increasing demands on gear components regarding increasing power density, reducing installation space, reducing weight, and increasing efficiency are also reflected in the design of gear components. The reduction of installation space and weight as well as the increase in power density often leads to an optimized wheel body design that interacts with the gearing in terms of load capacity and stiffness. This leads to an increase in the required geometric degrees of freedom (DOFs). Due to the resulting complex wheel body shapes and different production-related effects, production-related geometry adjustments may also be necessary. Tools for evaluating the gearing in combination with the wheel body shape and its influences nowadays form the basis for unlocking the holistic optimization potential of transmission components.
The objective of this report is to determine the origin of the phrase “profile shift.” Several technical books, technical papers, and industrial standards were reviewed for nomenclature associated with profile shift. The phrase “profile shift” translates directly to the German term “Profilverschiebung,” which originated in the last quarter of the 19th century. At first, profile shift was used to avoid undercutting pinions with small numbers of teeth. Later, it was recognized that profile shift improved the load capacity of the gear mesh and extended the service life of manufacturing tools.
The toothed belt and pulley system known by the designation T, which has been selected as an example within this paper, was developed in the 1950s and standardized first in DIN 7721 (1977) and then in ISO 17396:2014. In this case study, the authors check if a single hob can properly cut T5 profile pulleys with 25 and 30 teeth—and if so, define the range of the number of teeth covered by this hob.