Gear cutting

Extremely biting

The row of teeth flash for a second before they bite their prey… Some-thing directly from a horror film, nevertheless, it happens daily in the production halls around the world: Namely, when hobs, for example, produce starter ring gears for the deployment in automobile industry or gear-wheels in high-performance gearboxes. With CemeCon coatings, these hobs can retain their bite for a longer period.

Up to two billion gear wheels worldwide are manufactured and installed in gearboxes each year. Such numbers can be achieved only with the help of manufacturing organization with such capability and exceptional tools, or hobs, as they are called. This is because a torque of more than 700 Nm in the luxury class cars requires complicated geometries, which must be produced with highest precision: Switch-precision and quietness are the pre-requisite, the users will not pardon the smallest of error there. Reduced production times are a pre-requisite as well while chipping these high-tech gearboxes. In order to achieve this, feed rate and cutting rate are increased in the production, which puts a lot of pressure on the tool and coating. High-performance coating materials like HYPERLOX^® by CemeCon provide the head start exactly where standard-coated tools have been “losing teeth” since long.

Enormous demand for coating service

HYPERLOX^® and HYPERLOX^® BLUE are characterized by increased hardness and durability with an excellent adhesive strength. CemeCon has been optimizing the chipping of gear-wheels for many years using the coating system adapted to the hobs, which also includes a pre-treatment customized to cogging process. In the course of the year 2004, supply of hobs for the coating service saw development in such high magnitude that made it necessary to enhance the capacities and further optimize the existing processes. If ten manual operations were required for each hob till now, the number could successfully be reduced to three by using a new space concept, together by selecting an adequate crane and construction of different hoisting device. Manfred Weigand, product management round tools with CemeCon: “In the background of the challenge to coat approximately 500 tools each week and limit the cycle times, we had numerous tasks at hand. Thus, we had to create higher blasting, cleaning and capacities for coating removal in order to optimize the pre-treatment and coating of hobs.”

Result is a fully integrated production line, which handles all the working operations related to hobs for coating removal directly. Blasting plants and an additional cleaning plant are arranged in star-like form around a new crane. The coating area is directly connected, where two new CC800/9^®XL further heat up the coating service for hobs.

Source: FACTS 28 page 3