In order to meet the requirements of the worm gear processing industry for manufacturing accuracy, production power, clean production, and improved quality, gear machine tools and gear-making skills have shown the following development trends.

1. Numerical control

After CNC control of each motion axis of the machine tool and linkage between some axes, it has the following advantages:

1) The functions of the machine tool are increased, such as rolling small tapers and drum-shaped worm gears, etc., become extremely simple.

2) The transmission chain is shortened, and the semi-closed loop or full closed loop control is selected together. After numerical control compensation, the positioning accuracy and repeat positioning accuracy of each axis can be improved, and then the machining accuracy and Cp value of the machine tool are improved, and the reliability of the machine tool is increased.

3) When changing the type, because the calculation and the time of changing the gear change gear and the differential change gear, the feed and the spindle gear change are omitted, the gear shaper also eliminates the time to change the inclined guide rail, and then reduces the auxiliary processing At the moment, the flexibility of the machine tool is increased.

4) As the mechanical structure becomes simple, the planning can be more conducive to improving the rigidity of the machine tool and minimizing the thermal deformation.

5) There is no mechanical connection between each axis, and the structural planning becomes typical, which is more conducive to the implementation of modular planning and manufacturing.

2. High speed and high efficiency

The high speed of worm gear processing machine tools such as gear hobbing machines, gear shapers and gear grinding machines mainly means that the machine tools have high tool spindle speed and high table speed, which are the primary goals of improving cutting power. The hob spindle speed of traditional mechanical gear hobbing machine is generally up to 500r/min, and the table speed is up to 32r/min. With the improvement of the performance of the worm gear machining tool, the high-speed and high-efficiency cutting of the worm gear machining machine tool has been rapidly developed and mature. The worm gear hobbing cutting speed has been developed from 100m/min to 500~600m/min, and the cutting feed speed has been increased from 3~ From 4mm/r to 20mm/r, the maximum speed of the gear hobbing machine spindle can reach 5500r/min, the highest speed of the worktable can reach 800r/min, and the moving speed of machine tool parts can also reach 10m/min; the high-power spindle system makes the machine tool applicable Grinding wheels with larger diameters and lengths are beneficial to increase the life of the grinding wheels and also help the operator to select the optimal grinding parameters to complete the grinding process.

3. High precision

Due to the selection of high-precision, high-rigidity linear guide rails with preload, ball screws, rolling bearings, electric spindles, torque motors and numerical control skills, the accuracy of the worm gear processing machine tool under high-speed processing conditions is guaranteed and improved. The accuracy of the electric spindle is generally 0.002mm in radial runout and 0.001mm in the axial direction; the positioning accuracy of the ring torque servo motor is up to 0.5" and the repetitive positioning accuracy is up to 0.01"; the positioning accuracy of the linear motion axis is less than 0.008 mm, repeating The positioning accuracy is less than 0.005mm. Metal processing WeChat, the content is good, worthy of attention. Although gear hobbing and gear shaping are rough machining, they can still reach DIN 6 to 7 accuracy under high-speed cutting conditions, which guarantees high precision for the subsequent finishing processes. With the improvement in the production power of gear grinding machines, the decline in the cost of single-piece worm gear grinding, and the continuous pursuit of improved precision requirements for automotive worm gears, the demand for gear grinding machines in shopping malls is increasing; together, with the development of CNC skills, each The extension of functions between these machine tools is simpler to realize. Therefore, under the pressure of fierce market competition, the world's leading gear machine tool manufacturers have participated in the production of worm finishing machine tools represented by gear grinding machines. The development of this trend will make the future automotive worm gear and worm processing more and more use the rolling-grinding process.

4. Multifunction

The functional compound machine tool means that it can complete multiple processes on a machine tool or in one clamping of the workpiece, and then improve the processing power and even accuracy of the workpiece.

5. Green and environmental protection

The application of cutting fluid in the cutting process can increase the life of the tool, improve the quality of the machined surface and help discharge the cutting heat without causing thermal deformation of the machine tool. However, the splash of cutting fluid and the oil mist formed during high-speed cutting are particularly harmful to the ecological environment, especially the health of the operator. For this reason, the processing area is generally enclosed with a protective cover and an oil mist separator is installed. Only oil-free mist is discharged, and the cutting oil flows back into the machine tool for recycling. However, this does not fundamentally solve the environmental protection problem. Because the replacement and discharge of deteriorating cutting fluid will seriously pollute the environment, the cost of cutting fluid and cutting fluid additional equipment consumed in wet worm gear processing accounts for about 20% of the processing cost. Type cutting can increase the processing power by more than 2 to 3 times, and the service life of the tool is 2 to 5 times that of wet cutting. Therefore, dry cutting reduces the processing cost of a single piece of worm gear. Metal processing WeChat, the content is good, worthy of attention. High-speed dry cutting can not only reduce the consumption of cutting fluid and cooling treatment equipment, but also avoid pollution to the environment, but also increase the output power and reduce the manufacturing cost of a single worm gear.

6. Intelligent

The combination of digital control skills, sensor skills, information skills and network control skills makes the CNC worm gear processing machine tool more intelligent. Worm gear processing machine tools need to realize error compensation, temperature compensation, active balance, anti-collision function, overload maintenance, active recognition of the workpiece, whether the workpiece is clamped correctly, whether the workpiece has been machined, tooth engagement, machining allowance distribution, tool Wear, online precision detection, active dressing of grinding wheels, zero programming interface, multi-function processing software, cutting process expert system, active recognition of robots when transferring workpieces between machine tools, remote control, remote diagnosis and other functions, although intelligent is a worm gear machine tool Improve reliability, safety, stability, complex parts processing, precision processing and the basis for unmanned production, but it will continue to improve and progress.