ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb.

17-21) 2014

A list of software that can assist in design of mechine elements. You are encouraged to do a

research and evaluate them.

(1) MITCALC (www.mitcalc.com)

Excel integrated. It includes design package for gear, shaft, bolt, spring, bearing, etc.

Interface is not very attractive.

(2) AutoCAD Inventor (Design accelerator)

It is used to be called “mechsoft”, which was bought by Autodesk. You can register and

download AutoCad Inventor from http://students.autodesk.com/ for free.

The design accelerator has built in design equations for different machine elements.

(3) Solidworks (Tool library)

A very complete parts library including bearings, gears, bolts. You need to design your

shaft.

(4) KISSsoft (www.kissosft.ch)

An European software works for gear, shaft, bearing, springs, belts with good interface.

(5) MDSolids

Very useful for studying mechanics of material.

(6) Power Gear (www.gear-doc.com)

For gear only; for spur and helical gear only. It contains a “super set” of AGMA standard

2001.

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 ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb. 17-21) 2014

Example: How to Model a Spur Gear in Solidworks?

Given:

 Diametral pitch, = 2;

 Number of teeth, = 18;

 Pressure angle, = 20°

We can find the followings:

 Pitch diameter: = = = 9 in

 Base circle diameter, = cos = (9) cos 20° = 8.4572 in

.
 Addendum, = = 0.5 in; Dedendum, = = 0.625 in

 Addendum circle diameter, or outer circle diameter, + 2 = 10in

 Dedendum circle diameter, or root circle diameter, − 2 = 7.75in

.
 Clearance, = − =

 (This circle may not be necessary, but I keep it here for reference) Diameter of the

clearance circle, 7.75 + 0.25 = 8 in.

Step 1: Sketch the addendum circle and extrude to get the gear body. Use face width of 2 inches

Step 2: Create involute tooth profile. Under the same sketch,

Tools->Sketch Entities->Equation Driven Curves->Choose parametric equation

The parametric equation of the involute curve is

= cos + sin = (cos + sin )

= sin − cos = (sin − cos )

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 ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb. 17-21) 2014

This will start the involute curve from point

 If we would like to start the involute from point then the parametric equation is

= cos + + sin +
2 2

= sin + − cos +
2 2

Set = = cos or is the radius of base circle.

 If we would like to start the involute from point and direction of the involute as shown,

then the parametric equation is

= (cos(− − ) − sin(− − ))

= (sin(− − ) + cos(− − ))

Unit for needs to be in radian when entering the expression in Solidworks.

 Note that we can use the base circle diameter dimension in the

expression to drive the involute. This way, the invlute will be

updated once the base circle diameter is changed.

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 ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb. 17-21) 2014

 We can also generate the involute curve starting anywhere on the base circle. Since we

know the number of teeth, thus we know how much angle corresponds to circular pitch

°
or circular pitch along base circle, which is = = 20°. Since tooth thickness is the

same as width of space, we have four equally distributed angle along the circular pitch,

= 5°. As illustrated in the following diagram, can be found to be

−
= − rad = 0.854 deg

(If you are interested in how is obtained, please come to me)

Center
Line

Inv1 Inv2

Pitch circle

Base circle

360
360
4

Radial
Line

O x

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 ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb. 17-21) 2014

 Here are the expression for creating the following two involute curves.

For “inv1” we can use

X(t) = "D2@Sketch2"*0.5*(cos(t)+t*sin(t))

Y(t) = "D2@Sketch2"*0.5*(sin(t)-t*cos(t))

For “inv2” we can use

X(t) = "D2@Sketch2"*0.5*(cos(-t-2*"D4@Sketch2"*pi/180)-t*sin(-t-2*"D4@Sketch2"*pi/180))

Y(t) = "D2@Sketch2"*0.5*(sin(-t-2*"D4@Sketch2"*pi/180)+t*cos(-t-2*"D4@Sketch2"*pi/180))

Note that “D2@Sketch2” is the dimension for base circle diameter. “D4@Sketch2” is for

− .

Step 3: Create profile for the width of space.

Under the same sketch, Trim off unecassary curves and lines to keep onely the profile of the

width of space (you need to keep the radial line between base circle and dedendum circle.)

Check and finish this sketch

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 ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb. 17-21) 2014

Step 4: Create the Extruded Cut using the width of space profile.

Click on “Extruded Cut” feature and select the “sketch 2” which is the sketch we just finished.

This should give us following.

Step 5: fillet the bottom edge. Fillet radius should be smaller than the clearance .

Step 6: Do a circular pattern for both the extruded cut and the fillet features. Enter the number of

instance as 18.

Now we get a precise involute profile spur gear.

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 ENGR380 – Tutorial #6 (Feb. 17-21) 2014

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