Gear Honing
Gear Honing is a hard finishing method. It is applied to eliminate gear
errors after the process of hardening. It also smooths the surface of a gear
teeth. Honing is also known by another name that is "Shave Grinding".
In terms of machining kinematics or even the tool geometry it is quite
similar to gear shaving.
A common fallacy associated with honing is that it cannot better the
profile error, lead error etc., inherited from earlier machining and the
distortions that results from the hardening. This is not a correct thinking.
Modern and sophisticated gear honing (shave girding) machines easily removes
considerable amount of materials to rectify the gear errors.
Advantages of Gear Honing
The gear honing process offers the following advantages:
- Noise generation is reduced
- Higher input speeds
- Heightened surface durability
- Increased load capability
- Improved gear efficiency and quality
- No considerable increase of backlash
Gear Honing Machine
Gear honing machine is used for the finish machining of the tooth flanks of
hardened gears. It is well suited for honing high-volume automotive gears.
Its use in the honing process generates a high quality, final tooth geometry
on hardened gears, while improving surface roughness and structure. An image
of a typical gear honing machine is given below:
