Optimisation of gear surfaces
By improving the surface quality of gears, a significant increase in performance can be achieved in electrically driven vehicles.
A smoother surface with a higher contact ratio can increase the efficiency of torque transmission and thus the achievable range of the vehicle. The maximum surface pressure can also be further increased in order to be able to transmit higher torques of the electric motors and to take account of the lightweight design concept through smaller gears.
KAPP NILES offers various solutions here, from fine or polish grinding as a combined process to polish grinding as a single process, and thus the right technology for your requirements.
You can meet these requirements for the highest surface qualities economically and reproducibly with fine or polish grinding on KAPP NILES machines. Combined tools with different specifications are used for this purpose.
Conventional generating grinding
Conventional generating grinding uses a ceramic-bonded corundum grinding worm that consists of one specification throughout.
Combined process fine grinding
Fine grinding uses a combined tool with two specifications. In addition to the conventional grinding area, the tool has a fine grinding area that differs in terms of the tool specification. This allows surface finishes of Rz = 1 - 2.5 µm to be achieved with process reliability.
Combined process polish grinding
For even higher requirements, conventional grinding is combined with polish grinding. For this process, a tool with two areas is used. For polish grinding, a tool area with an elastic polyurethane or synthetic resin bond is used. Surface qualities of Rz < 1 µm can be achieved.
Polish grinding
After hardening, gears are conventionally ground to remove the existing allowance including hardening distortions and to produce the final workpiece geometry. The tooth flanks are then shot-peened to harden the surface. In the final work step, they are polish-ground with a one-piece polyurethane-bonded tool as a single technology to achieve a high surface quality.
Conference paper Aachen Forum on Gear Production
"High-End Surfaces of Gears for Electromobility"
While the quantity of gears within drive trains for e-mobility has drastically decreased compared to drive trains for vehicles with combustion engines, their design has changed significantly and alongside the geometrical tolerances were massively sharpened. Find out more about new requirements and challenges in gear grinding for electric vehicles and suitable optimisation strategies.
AGMA Emerging Technology Webinar
"Generating Ultrafine Surface Finish on Gear Teeth for EV Applications"
Patrick Duhre, Team Leader Test Grinding / Contract Grinding at KAPP NILES, presents more on the topic of "Generating Ultrafine Surface Finishes on Gear Teeth for EV Applications":
- Overview on superfinishing technologies on a gear grinding machine.
- Classification of the technologies into different process chains.
- Process and machine requirements for different tool geometries
"Particularly with the varying and constantly increasing requirements for transmissions of electrified vehicles, it is always impressive to see how profound the knowledge of KAPP NILES is in this area. Here, the expertise goes far beyond the limits of the grinding machine, which is a prerequisite for understanding current customer requirements and translating them into a grinding process.“
Dr.-Ing. André Wagner - Head of Grinding Technology | Hermes
„Together with KAPP NILES, we were able to work on a number of interesting research projects on the hard fine machining of gears. The highlight was certainly the integration of the polishing process directly on the gear grinding machine - which is now indispensable for a wide range of applications in the field of e-mobility."
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Carsten Heinzel | Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering (IWT) & University Bremen
"E-mobility needs high-precision gears, high precision gears need high precision diamond dressers and for high precision dressers we have KAPP NILES!"
Baocheng Feng - Tool Management Manager | Shuanghuan
"KAPP NILES is an invaluable partner in realising the complex gear tooth geometries that are needed for race and hypercar transmissions. We use their experience and support in both the profile and generate grinding technology for gears of the highest quality for quiet operation and for durability."
Martin Halley - Production Engineering Director | Xtrac
"E-mobility projects are very easy to realise with KAPP NILES. KAPP NILES is a competent supplier for e-mobility and offers top quality for every application."
Jürgen Kempf - Head of Technical Application Consulting and Sales | König MTM
"Manufacturing engineering is major key to economically and ecologically balanced powertrain production. KAPP NILES supports production-based innovation in FVA giving impulses and know how for innovative and up-to-date research projects. On the other hand KAPP NILES is lead applicator of FVA research results to set the pace for excellent production equipment and machines."
Dipl.-Ing. Christian Kunze | FVA (Research Association for Drive Technology - Support Association MOBIMA e.V.)
"KAPP NILES gear grinding machines have a reasonable layout, smooth automation system and excellent rigidity. After decades of years of advancement and optimisation, they have always remained in the first front of worm gear grinding machines. In particular, the KX 300 P and KX 260 TWIN models continue to provide excellent stability and efficiency in the grinding of e-mobility gears, providing a good machining experience for the user."
Wu Youxiang - Manufacturing Engineering | Shuanghuan
"We completed long test runs of the gearbox with the development department. This resulted in change requests to the process and the tools, which always had to be implemented under time pressure. I had a contact person at KAPP NILES at all times - even at weekends if things had to be done quickly. This meant that we had a new batch of prototypes in the shortest possible time with which we could go to the test stand. KAPP NILES helped us a lot during the prototype phase of our new development for a fully electric transmission for a super sports car and was always an optimal partner for us."
Roberto Di Geronimo - Competence Leader Gears & Gauges | FPT
"Highest quality through first-class cooperation: With KAPP NILES we realise a large number of innovative clamping solutions for gears. An absolute win-win situation with maximum benefit for our joint customers."
Thomas Hübl - Head of Key Account | Hainbuch
"The investment in a KAPP NILES gear grinding machine was the basis for our competence development in gear hard machining. With the flexibility of this machine, we can map all current research topics in gear grinding around e-mobility."
Carsten Hochmuth | Fraunhofer IWU, Chemnitz
„With KAPP NILES we started the demanding topic of e-mobility gears at a new production site. We got perfect support for the package consisting of gear grinding and measuring machine.“
Elias Häggström - Director of Gear Technology | LEAX
Optimise your gear solutions for e-drives
At KAPP NILES, you not only get the technology, but also the flexibility to adapt to a wide range of e-mobility requirements. Contact us to learn more about our advanced solutions. Trust in Technology with KAPP NILES!
Markus Reißenweber
Head of Sales Europe & America
"I will be pleased to show you how to increase your manufacturing potential in the field of e-mobility with KAPP NILES."