High Performance Gears (HIPER GEARS)

Purpose and goal

The purpose has been to increase knowledge of power skiving, a relatively new production method used, among other things, for the production of internal gears in drivelines for the automotive industry. More specifically, the wear and life of skiving tools and how these are affected by tool material and cutting data as well as by the work material, in particular by high-purity materials, are treated. The project has been carried out in collaboration with Leax, Ionbond, Sandvik Coromant, Ovako, Scania and Erasteel Kloster and is financed within the Metalliska Material programme.

Expected results and effects

A good picture of the wear´s appearance and its causes and development over time has been obtained. Vibration and stability of set-up appear to play a large role in the wear appearance and entail specific requirements on tool material and geometry and how cutting data should be selected. Work materials with different inclusion content were tested and for our demonstrator we could not see any problems with increased wear or problems with chip removal for high-purity steels, which may mean that these can be used to a greater extent where high performance is demanded.

Planned approach and implementation

In the project, a demonstrator has been developed and a large part of the testing has then been carried out in various skiving machines in production at Leax´s facilities in Rezekne, Latvia and later in Köping. The wear has been measured on site at suitable intervals with an Infinite Focus equipment from Alicona where even very small wear can be monitored. Detailed studies have also been carried out in SEM. In parallel with the full-scale tests, a simplified test methodology has been developed to enable ranking of materials with regard to wear in a significantly simpler machine setup.