Simulation of a cylindrical form grinding process by the radial-ray shooting (RRS) method

Instead of an analytic gearing envelope theory, a radial-ray shooting (RRS) method is proposed in this paper to simulate the form grinding process for a threaded cylindrical workpiece such as a spur, helical gear, screw, etc. The shape of the workpiece is first fitted approximately by several circular arcs using the least square errors method and then by shooting several radial rays from each arc center to obtain the intersecting points with the locus of the cutter. Finally, the precise profile of the workpiece can be determined from the intersecting points on each ray without solving the simultaneous system equations of locus and the equation of meshing. Several numerical examples are presented to show the robustness and the accuracy of the proposed method by finding the grinding wheel profiles from the given workpiece profile and then finding the ground tooth profile reversely from the grinding wheel. The proposed RRS method is a powerful tool to accurately simulate the form grinding process.