Direct gear tooth contact analysis for hypoid bevel gears (Q1858499)

This article provides a new methodology of tooth contact analysis for hypoid bevel gears based on a general mathematical model of generating process. The characterizations of the paths of contact, the transmission error, and the contact ellipses which are obtained directly in terms of functions modeling the underlying virtual machine tool and its derivatives, are well suited for their computation. For the computation of the required functions, the authors use the automatic differentiation tool ADOL-C, that allows the evaluation of first- and higher-order derivatives of vector functions defined by computer programs written in C or C++.