Abstract
Effective heat treatment and surface finish are essential for improving the lifespan and functionality of gears. In this research paper, surface quality enhancement of bevel gears is achieved using heat-treated and coated honing gear instead of traditional abrasive materials. Although abrasive techniques are effective, they often result in increased wear and inconsistent surface finishes. The 20MnCr5 steel honing gear having higher hardness than workpiece gears is used as special accompaniment in the advanced pulse electrochemical honing (P-ECH) process. The hardened honing gear is prone to corrosion because of the electrolyte used in the P-ECH finishing process, consequently reducing its lifespan and degrading performance. Thus, the essential hardness, wear, and corrosive resistance to honing gear are achieved through well-defined and combined case hardening and coating treatments, viz. (i) carburizing process (CP) alone, (ii) CP followed by cryogenic treatment (CT), (referred to as CPCT) and (iii) CPCT with additional coating of Titanium Nitrate (TiN), (referred to as CPCTiN). Extensive experiments were undertaken to investigate the performance of enhanced honing gear at different speed levels in terms of surface finish and microgeometry improvement belonging to workpiece gears in P-ECH process. The experimental results indicate an improvement of 63.46% in maximum surface roughness, 52.51% in average surface roughness, and an overall improvement in cumulative pitch errors and runout for the finished bevel gear processed with enhanced corrosion-resistant CPCTiN honing gear at 40 rpm. This study highlights that honing gear treatment and speed selection significantly influence the balance between anodic dissolution and mechanical scrubbing ensuring uniform material removal and improved gear accuracy.
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