Continuous generating gear grinding with vitrified grinding worms is an established process for the hard finishing of gears for high-performance transmissions. Due to the increasing requirements for gears in terms of power density, the required surface roughness is continuously decreasing. In order to meet the required tooth flank roughness, common manufacturing processes are polish grinding with elastic bonded grinding tools and fine grinding with vitrified grinding tools. The process behavior and potential of the different bonds for producing super fine surfaces in generating gear grinding have not been sufficiently scientifically investigated yet. Therefore, the objective of this report is to evaluate these potentials. Part of the investigations are the generating gear grinding process with elastic bonded, as well as vitrified grinding worms with comparable grit sizes. The potential of the different tool specifications is empirically investigated independent of the grain size, focusing on the influence of the bond. One result of the investigations was that the tooth flank roughness could be reduced to nearly the same values with the polish and the fine grinding tool. Furthermore, a dependence of the roughness on the selected grinding parameters could not be determined. However, it was found out that the profile line after polish grinding is significantly dependent on the process strategy used.
Potentials of Vitrified and Elastic Bonded Fine Grinding Worms in Continuous Generating Gear Grinding