A novel approach to the inspection of gears with a co-ordinate measuring machine theoretical aspects

The accuracy of gears is a key to the performance of a mechanical transmission system. In this paper a novel approach is proposed for inspecting gear profiles with a Go-ordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). The gear profile inspection models are described with a set of equations. The theoretical aspects of the models are explored with respect to the minimum number of inspection points, profile evaluation method and the factors influencing the inspection accuracy. The co-ordinates of a certain number of points on the gear tooth surface are measured and a theoretical gear tooth surface expressed as a function of the CMM co-ordinate system is estimated by the method of least squares, so that the surface fits the measured data. The gear profile models and their simulations are implemented via MATLAB.