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RIT's Gear Research Consortium welcomes Allison Transmission

RIT and the Gear Research Laboratory welcome Allison Transmission as a new member of the RIT's Gear Research Consortium. Allison Transmission is the world’s largest manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles and is a leader in hybrid-propulsion systems for city buses. Allison Transmission’s products are specified by more than 300 of the world's leading vehicle manufacturers and are used in a wide range of market sectors including bus, fire, construction, distribution, defense, and specialty applications.

Allison was founded in 1915 in Indianapolis, Indiana, where the company's global headquarters is still located. Allison Transmission has regional offices all over the world and manufacturing facilities in Indianapolis, Chennai, India, and Szentgotthárd, Hungary.

We are very proud to have Allison Transmission as a member of the RIT’s Gear Research Consortium. With their collaboration and expertise, we are sure we are going to bring IGD to a completely new level of design, simulation, and manufacturing capabilities.

EGILE joins the RIT's Gear Research Consortium

RIT and the Gear Research Laboratory welcome EGILE and its HIGH PRECISION MECHANICS Division (DMP) as a new member of the RIT's Gear Research Consortium. EGILE is a company with 30 years of history, committed to creating impact through products and solutions of high value in sectors where extreme precision is a fundamental requirement. The high Precision Division of EGILE is composed of five business units, serving high-critical areas, such as the aerospace and security sectors, large scientific infrastructure and equipment, the packaging sector and thin sheet metal processing.

The High Precision Mechanics Division of EGILE covers the complete cycle of high precision machining, from engineering and design, to manufacturing. They design, develop, and manufacture components for the aeronautic and security sector such us engines, aircraft transmission systems, landing gear components, and actuation systems for leading aeronautical companies, through three specialized business units: AEROTRANSMISSION, AEROENGINES, and AEROSYSTEMS. They also develop high-precision mechanical solutions for the scientific and aerospace sectors, through the EXTREME PRECISION unit, as well as complete, easy open-end conversion systems for the food metal container section (CAN TOOLING unit).

EGILE and its High Precision Mechanics Division is located in Mendaro, Spain, in the heart of a territory with a long industrial tradition. In 2018, their turnover was around 24 M-Euros, exporting over 50% of his production. The company has more than 270 employees and invests 15% of the turnover in Research, Development, and Innovation (R+D+i). They are part of the Egile Corporation, a diversified industrial and technological group, with more than 350 employees.

We are looking forward to having a very long and fruitful collaboration with EGILE. Their vision to apply leading-edge technologies to put in the market high-value products, services, and solutions has already placed them as a reference leading company in all their business areas. We are honored to have EGILE as a member of the RIT's Gear Research Consortium.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of IGD – Integrated Gear Design

This month we celebrate the 10th anniversary of IGD - Integrated Gear Design. Thanks to everyone that have contributed in one way or another to make IGD a reference computer program for advanced gear design and simulation. It was fall of year 2009 when we started to work on this idea and we wrote the first lines of code of a computer program aimed to combine all the accumulated experience on the application of the theory of gearing and to make advanced gear design and simulation accessible to everyone.

Today, with more than 1.2 million lines of code in more than 1120 files, IGD has become a reference computational tool for the design of optimized gear tooth surfaces that allows noise and vibration in gear drives to be reduced and power density, expected life, and endurance of gear drives to be increased. All the above is achieved by considering optimized contact patterns and favorable functions of transmission errors. IGD includes a virtual generator of almost any type of gear based on the kinematic of the manufacturing process and geometry of the cutting tool, a free form design module of gear tooth surfaces, tooth contact analysis based on the consideration of three pairs of contacting teeth, generation of finite element models including shaft and bearings for stress analysis, compensation of errors of alignment by geometry modifications, simulation of the excitation of noise and vibration by transmission errors or the variation of the meshing stiffness, and the generation of geometric models for CAD or 3D printing

IGD is currently being used by the members of the RIT’s Gear Research Consortium and developed to meet their needs for advanced gear design and simulation. Do not hesitate to contact us to learn more about IGD and our RIT’s Gear Research Consortium.

Our latest research work has just been published in Mechanism and Machine Theory

Our latest research work entitled "Conjugated Action and Methods for Crowning in Face-Hobbed Spiral Bevel and Hypoid Gear Drives Through the Spirac System" has just been published in the Journal Mechanism and Machine Theory. In this work, an analytical method for derivation of basic machine-tool settings that allows the conjugated action in face-hobbed spiral bevel and hypoid gear drives is proposed. This approach is then used as starting point for investigation of further methods of crowning. A new approach where crowning is achieved through the application of modified roll between the rotations of the head-cutter and the pinion is proposed. It is based on the application of a two-term Fourier series of a parabolic function to provide a continuous and periodic function that is required in a continuous non-indexing process as face-hobbing. The existing and proposed approaches for crowning have been tested by the application of tooth contact analysis and geometry comparison by means of our IGD - Integrated Gear Design program. The results show that the proposed approach does not yield unloaded transmission errors and allows independent crowning at both tooth sides to get acceptable formations of the bearing contact for both rotational directions. Two numerical examples of design corresponding to a spiral bevel gear drive and a hypoid gear drive are presented as well starting from their basic data.

 

 

 

The final version of our paper can be downloaded free from ScienceDirect until June 12, 2019 by clicking here.

Join us and learn about advanced design, simulation of meshing and stress analysis of gear drives

The workshop "Advanced Design, Simulation & Stress Analysis of Gear Drives" will be held for the first time at RIT Campus in Rochester, NY, on June 24-26, 2019. This practical 3-day workshop will bring you up to speed on advanced gear design and simulation utilizing state-of-the-art computational tools for virtual generation of gears and application of tooth contact analysis (TCA) and finite element analysis (FEA). Topics include: application of micro-geometry modifications to avoid edge contact and absorb errors of alignment, free-form design of gear tooth surfaces, evaluation of the loaded function of transmission errors and mesh stiffness as the main cause of noise and vibration during operation, compensation of errors of alignment caused by shaft deflections, and advanced design and simulation of different types of gear drives.

The workshop should be of interest for engineers and qualified technicians involved in the design, analysis, manufacture, or application of gear drives. Industries include automotive, wind-energy, aircraft, general manufacturing, and gear manufacturers. Members of the RIT's Gear Research Consortium can register free of charge! Members of AGMA will have a 10% discount on the individual registration. There are discounts for RIT alumni and employees as well as for a group registration from the same organization.

For more information and to register, please visit www.rit.edu/kgcoe/cqas/geardrives. Download a brochure here.

Dr. Fuentes selected as the KGCOE featured faculty for the RIT's 2017 faculty scholarship report

Dr. Alfonso Fuentes Aznar has been selected as the KGCOE featured faculty in the RIT's Faculty Scholarship report of 2017. The  RIT's annual scholarship report is intended to acknowledge the ever-growing body of work produced by the RIT faculty in a wide range of fields and formats. The 2017 faculty scholarship report is the eighth annual review highlighting RIT faculty publications, scholarly presentations, exhibits, performances, and fellowships for the year 2017. The featured faculty members in the RIT's scholarship report exemplify the teacher/scholar ideal and are models to their students and colleagues.

Acess the whole article by clicking here.

Dr. Hui Guo recently joined the Gear Research Lab

Dr. Hui Guo, Associate Professor at the Northwestern Polytechnical University in China, has recently joined the RIT's Gear Research Laboratory as a Visiting Scholar. Dr. Guo's research is focused on the development of design and machining methods of face gears, the dynamic analysis of gear transmission and the application of the finite element method for contact stress calculation.

Some of his latest papers are:

  • GUO Hui, Peng Xiongqi, "A CNC grinding method and envelope residual model for face gear", International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol.79, pp. 1689-1698, 2015.
  • GUO Hui, ZHAO Ning, "Face Gear Grinding Method Using Six-axis CNC Worm Wheel Machine", Journal Of Mechanical Engineering, Vol. 53(7), 2015. (in Chinese)
  • GUO Hui, ZHAO Ning, "Dressing Method with Fewer CNC Axes for Face Gear Grinding Worm with Standard Cone Dressing Wheel", Journal of Mechanical Engineering, Vol. 51(11), pp. 186-194, 2015. (in Chinese)
  • GUO Hui, ZHAO Ning, "Tooth surface function-oriented design of face gear based on grinding disk", Journal of Central South University, Vol. 46 (7), pp. 2459-2466, 2015. (in Chinese)
  • GUO Hui, ZHAO Ning, "Surface Envelope Residuals Research of Face Gear Based on Disc Wheel Grinding Method", Journal of Aerospace Power, Vol. 29(11), pp. 2743-2750, 2014. (in Chinese)
  • GUO Hui, ZHAO Ning, "Tooth Deviation Analysis and Experimental Research of Face Gear Based on Disk Grinding Wheel", Journal of Northwestern Polytechnical University, Vol. 31(6), pp. 915-920, 2013.(in Chinese)