Cutter position calculation of machining equal base circle bevel gears with a pot-shaped milling cutter

Aiming at achieving the application of numerical control (NC) machining equal base circle bevel gears with a pot-shaped cutter, with the equal base circle bevel gear theory, the model of pot-shaped cutter is established and the main parameters deciding the positions and postures of cutter are solved. Furthermore, the cutter positions in the gear blank coordinate system are obtained by calculating the cutter axis vector and centric coordinates. On this basis, combined with the general five-axis NC machine tool, the general expressions of trajectory for five-axis NC machining this kind of gears are presented; the results of cutter positions and states are verified by 3D modeling. Finally, the correctness of the tool trajectory is proved through the machining simulation and actual experiment. The results show that machining equal base circle bevel gears with a pot-shaped cutter can be achieved upon a general NC machine tool.