Since 1997, numerous companies around the world like
MIL Helicopter, DECKEL MAHO (Gildemeister), Klingelnberg (by its partner
Overton Gear ),
General Motors,
Volvo,
Delphi Automotive,
TACOM DOD,
Chrysler,
Moog Aerospace,
Curtiss-Wright Controls, Boeing and many other business have been benefiting from valuable knowledge of Dr. Stepan V. Lunin about spiral bevel gear technology in conduction with 3-dimensional CAD gear modeling of the gear tooth and contact pattern simulation. In 1997, Dr. Lunin started Internet advertisement of a new digital gear theory on
ZAKGEAR web site. The new digital theory has become the key for developing of effective mathematical algorithms that, today, allow us programming our machines for spiral bevel gear manufacturing with better quality and at lower cost compare to the traditional gear manufacturers.
In 2002 Dr. Lunin has become a recognized leader in software development for accurate machining of spiral bevel and for other gears, by presenting Direct Digital Simulation method for spiral bevel gear design and for spiral bevel gear manufacturing [1]. Spiral Bevel Co owns exclusive rights on the latest version of spiral bevel software that allows producing spiral bevel gears with superior quality and strength. While the exclusive rights to use the latest version of spiral bevel software gives us significant technological advantage, we also employ talented experts in practical gear machining. Other companies also advertise elements of contact pattern simulation technology for spiral bevel gears, however, with less advanced calculation methods and less successful gear manufacturing history. Because Spiral Bevel Co has secured an exclusive agreement to use ZAKGEAR spiral bevel design and spiral bevel manufacturing software, the other companies would have to develop their own bevel gear software for gear design and for gear manufacturing.
Today, we have the most advanced spiral bevel gear design software and the most advanced bevel gear manufacturing processes. Our gear software can be used for cutting of spiral bevel gears commonly known as Gleason or Klingelnberg bevel gears or other bevel geaars. We offer rough soft and finish hard cut of hardened 64 HRc surface. The pictures on this web site show true spiral bevel gears that have been produced with help of our bevel gear design software. While we have been helping other companies to develop spiral bevel manufacturing technology we do not have any agreements on using our spiral bevel software by others. 
Our software is based on unique mathematical algorithms that calculate the position, motion, and direction of the critical tooth contact pattern that helps in production of spiral bevel gear tooth surface with quality that was impossible otherwise.
Because of our effective mathematical algorithms it takes just a few seconds for our gear software to generate bevel tooth contact pattern that can be used for validation of the practical cutting of spiral bevel gears and mating bevel pinions. We can take the existing summary from Gleason or from Klingelnberg machine and our bevel gear software would automatically produce a programming code for cutting an identical bevel gear with identical contact pattern. In our experience we found that replicating of the existing summary from Gleason or from Klingelnberg machines may result in replication of originally poor bevel gear design. Often, Gleason or Klingelnberg machine summary do not produce the best possible tooth contact or optimized tooth form. Traditionally, the design and manufacturing of spiral bevel gears involve iterations for the development of the tooth contact. The first calculated summary for Gleason or for Klingelnberg machine is often not the best machine summary for highest strength gear.
The tooth contact pattern development is always involved, which means cutting the first set, then checking the tooth contact, then correcting of the summary and then cutting of the corrected tooth form. Gleason, Klingelnberg and other companies have also developed advanced software for reduction of the number of iterations during the contact pattern development. If the gear design is simple the number of iterations is as low as two or three when Gleason or similar gear software is used. Zakgear bevel software provides correct contact pattern at the first iteration.
Our Tooth Contact Analyzes (TCA) software allows to predict the final and correct tooth contact mathematically before spiral bevel gears are cut. TCA is still an expensive process that is based on complicated mathematical modeling. Because of the high cost of the TCA software it is not often used in production. Many gear manufacturing shops employ experienced workers who would know how to improve the tooth contact without use of TCA software. An average gear cutting workshop would prefer to save engineering cost by replacing TCA optimization procedure with less then perfect tooth contact painting procedure on the rolling tester. In manufacturing of large spiral bevel gears the TCA becomes more cost effective because of the high cost of large bevel gears. While the cost of one computer simulated iteration of TCA can be as low as $1000.00 US, the cost of one real gear cutting plus TCA on the roling tester can cost as much as $20,000.00.
The traditionally expensive TCA software becomes highly cost effective in production of large spiral bevel gears. Before starting the gear cutting machine the summary and the 3-d CAD tooth geometry of the future gear should be inspected on TCA software in order to prevent additional cost of the contact patern development.
There is more technology hidden in modern spiral bevel gear manufacturing than just making conjugated gears with spiral tooth. Starting with a conjugated gear mesh would be a good idea.
However, during the last 50 years the spiral bevel gear technology has moved forward with introduction of different tooth modification methods that allow to make modern spiral bevel gears stronger and quieter. The modern improvements in spiral bevel gears was achieved mostly thanks to development of mathematical modeling software, and most importantly because of TCA software. TCA software is currently a necessary step in cost effective production of large spiral bevel gears. Machine summary must be examined for the tooth contact before machinning.
We own unique software for TCA, which allows us to predict the tooth contact pattern before machining, so we can do necessary corrections before we cut the real gear. Our software also allows to correct the summary for improvement of the tooth contact that would
be impossible to improve on the traditional gear generating machines. In addition to manufacturing of gears we can examen your current gear for correctness of the tooth contact.
References:
1. Stepan V. Lunin ”New method of gear geometry calculation” International Congress on Gears, Fukuoka, Japan, 2002
2. V.I. Goldfarb, S.V. Lunin, E.S. Trubchev. “Direct Digital Simulations for Gears” Volume 1, Izhevsk 2004, ISBN 5-7526-0196-7
3. Stepan V. Lunin, “Direct Digital Simulation Modeling” Gear Solutions magazine, May 2004, pages 32-38
4. Goldfarb, Lunin, Trubachev. “Advanced computer modeling technique in gear engineering” 2003 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences. September 2-6, 2003, Chicago, Illinois
5. Goldfarb, Lunin, Trubachev. “Novel computer modeling technique in gear engineering” 2004 IFTMM Congress, China, Beijing, April 2004.