A method of manufacturing a hypoid gear includes face hobbing a gear blank and forming a green hypoid gear with gear teeth, heat treating the green hypoid gear to form a heat treated hypoid gear with heat treated gear teeth, and hard hobbing the heat treated gear teeth to form a hard finished hypoid gear. Critical non-tooth features on the heat treated hypoid gear are hard finished. Also, the critical non-tooth features on the heat treated hypoid gear can be hard finished prior to hard hobbing the heat treated gear teeth. The heat treating includes at least one of carburizing and induction hardening the green hypoid gear, a surface of the heat treated gear teeth has a hardness greater than or equal to 58 HRC, and the hard hobbing removes heat distortion from the heat treated gear teeth.

A rotary machining apparatus that includes a rotary that supports and rotates a workpiece having helical teeth; a grinding wheel that grinds the helical teeth of the workpiece to be rotated by the rotary with grinding teeth; and a conveyor for carrying the workpiece in and out of the rotary, wherein the conveyor includes, around a turning center axis, a plurality of grippers for sandwiching the workpiece and a plurality of dressers for forming toothed surfaces of the grinding teeth, and turns around the turning center axis so that the grippers sequentially approach the rotary and the dressers sequentially approach the grinding wheel, and dress teeth of the dressers each have different shapes of toothed surfaces.

A method of machining a tooth flank of a gear with a gear machining tool. The method comprises rotating the tool and bringing the tool and the tooth flank into contact. Relative movements are provided between the tool and the gear to traverse the tool across the tooth flank along a path whereby the path produces a tooth flank geometry of a form which, when brought into mesh with a mating tooth flank under no load or light load to form a tooth pair, provides a motion graph curve comprising a sinusoidal portion (62, 89, 91, 90, 63) and a parabolic portion (92).

A method for forming an assembly having a housing and first and second components. The first and second components are movable relative to one another in the housing. The method includes: providing first and second workpieces; moving the first and second workpieces relative to one another in a predetermined manner that produces relative sliding contact between the first and second workpieces while performing a superfinishing operation on the first and second workpieces to form the first and second components, respectively, wherein the superfinishing operation does not comprise a lapping operation; and mounting the first and second components in the housing such that the first and second components are engaged to one another and are movable relative to one another in the predetermined manner.

A method of producing a tooth flank surface on gear teeth by controlled removal of stock material from a work gear with a tool with the work gear and the tool being movable with respect to one another along and/or about a plurality of axes. The tool and work gear are engaged with one another and then moved relative to one another in a generating motion along and/or about the plurality of axes. Stock material is removed from the work gear to produce the tooth surface on the work gear. The generating motion along and/or about the plurality of axes comprises motion along and/or about at least one of the axes with the motion being defined by a function having a first level component and a second level component. The first level component defining a maximum flank form deviation amplitude for each tooth of the work gear, and the second level component defining a modification of the tooth surface of each tooth of the work gear.

A method for hard finishing two different toothings on a workpiece, wherein, prior to each machining process, to set the correct tool engagement position for the machining process, a first relative rotational angle position of a first rotational position reference of the first toothing is determined relative to an axial rotational position of the workpiece spindle holding and clamping the workpiece for the first machining, and a second relative rotational angle position of a second rotational position reference of the second toothing is determined relative to an axial rotational position of a workpiece spindle holding and clamping the workpiece for the second machining, wherein the machining operations are carried out on the same workpiece spindle with no intervening clamping change, and with the first and second rotational position references coupled to each other as the basis thereof.

A method of manufacturing a hypoid gear includes face hobbing a gear blank and forming a green hypoid gear with gear teeth, heat treating the green hypoid gear to form a heat treated hypoid gear with heat treated gear teeth, and hard hobbing the heat treated gear teeth to form a hard finished hypoid gear. Critical non-tooth features on the heat treated hypoid gear are hard finished. Also, the critical non-tooth features on the heat treated hypoid gear can be hard finished prior to hard hobbing the heat treated gear teeth. The heat treating includes at least one of carburizing and induction hardening the green hypoid gear, a surface of the heat treated gear teeth has a hardness greater than or equal to 58 HRC, and the hard hobbing removes heat distortion from the heat treated gear teeth.

A method for forming an assembly having a housing and first and second components. The first and second components are movable relative to one another in the housing. The method includes: providing first and second workpieces; moving the first and second workpieces relative to one another in a predetermined manner that produces relative sliding contact between the first and second workpieces while performing a superfinishing operation on the first and second workpieces to form the first and second components, respectively, wherein the superfinishing operation does not comprise a lapping operation; and mounting the first and second components in the housing such that the first and second components are engaged to one another and are movable relative to one another in the predetermined manner.

A method for forming an assembly having a housing and first and second components. The first and second components are movable relative to one another in the housing. The method includes: providing first and second workpieces; moving the first and second workpieces relative to one another in a predetermined manner that produces relative sliding contact between the first and second workpieces while performing a superfinishing operation on the first and second workpieces to form the first and second components, respectively, wherein the superfinishing operation does not comprise a lapping operation; and mounting the first and second components in the housing such that the first and second components are engaged to one another and are movable relative to one another in the predetermined manner.

Method comprising: a) specifying a target ease-off for a first pair of gear wheels from a number of structurally-equivalent gear wheel pairs, b) carrying out a first lapping procedure on the first gear wheel pair, c) carrying out a measurement procedure on the first gear wheel pair to acquire multiple measured values on tooth flanks of both gear wheels, d) ascertaining the actual ease-off of the first gear wheel pair from the measured values, e) ascertaining deviations of the actual ease-off in relation to the target ease-off, f) ascertaining correction values on the basis of the deviations, g) defining an adapted lapping procedure on the basis of the correction values, and h) either carrying out a further, adapted lapping procedure on the first gear wheel pair, i) or carrying out an adapted lapping procedure on a second gear wheel pair from the number of structurally-equivalent gear wheel pairs.