Adaptive data-driven prediction and optimization of tooth flank heat treatment deformation for aerospace spiral bevel gears by considering carburizing-meshing coupling effect

Abstract In the current tooth flank manufacturing of aerospace spiral bevel gears, accurate prediction and optimization of heat treatment deformation is of paramount significance to high accuracy improvement. In particular, the loaded elastic contact mechanical variation can directly affect tooth flank heat treatment geometric topography in micro-scale. An innovative adaptive data-driven prediction and optimization of tooth flank heat treatment deformation for spiral bevel gears by considering carburizing-meshing coupling effect is proposed in this work. At first, numerical loaded tooth contact analysis (NLTCA) based on data-driven tooth flank finite element modeling is integrated into tooth flank carburizing to get an accurate data-driven determination of carburizing-meshing coupling effect. Then, machine settings are used as the basic data to perform the data-driven tooth flank deformation prediction. The recent machine tool settings modification is extended to the case that the loaded contact deformation is predicted as the important tooth flank geometric accuracy. Finally, an adaptive data-driven optimization of tooth flank heat treatment deformation considering carburizing-meshing coupling effect is proposed for a high-accuracy tooth flank manufacturing. The given numerical instance can verify the proposed method.