Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2022, 9, 2024–2039

DOI: 10.1093/jcde/qwac103
Advance access publication date: 24 September 2022
Research Article

Optimal tool path generation and cutter geometry design

for five-axis CNC flank milling of spiral bevel gears

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Chih-Hsing Chu1, *, Yuansheng Zhou2, *, En-Meng Liu1 and Jinyuan Tang2
1
Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management National, Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
2
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410017, China
∗
Corresponding author. E-mail: chchu@ie.nthu.edu.tw (C.-H. Chu); zyszby@csu.edu.cn (Y. Zhou)

Abstract
Computer numerical control milling provides greater flexibility and universality for machining complex gears compared to dedicated
gear manufacturing. A critical challenge in popularizing the use of five-axis flank milling to spiral bevel gears is to achieve acceptable
machining accuracy that ensures the meshing performance of the finished gears. Previous studies, which used approaches such as
gear design modification, using multiple tool paths, and end milling, failed to resolve this issue. Thus, this paper proposes a compu-
tational scheme to improve the machining accuracy of five-axis flank milling of spiral bevel gears by optimizing the tool path and
cutter geometry. The scheme minimizes the geometric deviations between the machined surface and original design using heuristics
and optimization algorithms. A simplified tooth contact analysis method was developed to quantitatively evaluate the contact path
of the meshing gears. The simulation results of real gears show that the proposed scheme outperforms previous methods in reducing
machining errors and further enhance the meshing performance by optimizing the design of form cutters. This work developed an
effective approach for flexible and low-cost manufacturing of complex gears.

Keywords: spiral bevel gear, five-axis machining, flank milling, tool path planning, optimization, cutter design

1. Introduction able for manufacturing in small batches, prototypes, and re-

pairs. Despite having a lower productivity than the traditional ap-
Spiral bevel gears are designed to transfer power between non-
proaches, CNC milling of spiral bevel gears offers higher flexibility
parallel axes in various mechanical systems, such as automobiles,
and universality. A CNC machine tool can produce various types
engineering machinery, aerospace engines, and machine tools. Ge-
of gears over a wide range of sizes using corresponding part pro-
ometrically, spiral bevel gears feature truncated cone profiles and
grams. Previous studies related to CNC milling of spiral bevel gears
curved teeth to achieve a higher contact ratio than cylindrical
can be classified into studies focusing on end and flank milling
or straight bevel gears. Thus, they can withstand higher power
operations. Suh et al., (2001, 2003) verified the feasibility of NC
transmission with reduced vibration and noise. However, complex
free-form surface machining applied to spiral bevel gears using
tooth surfaces make their manufacturing challenging. This is crit-
a three-axis CNC milling machine with a rotary table. Teixeira
ical as the manufacturing accuracy and quality directly affect the
Alves et al., (2013) developed an integrated Computer-Aided De-
efficiency, quality, and service life of the finished gears.
sign (CAD)/Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) system for the
Common methods for spiral bevel gear manufacturing include
design and manufacturing of spiral bevel gear tooth surfaces de-
face milling, face hobbing, and hobbing, which require machin-
scribed by spherical involute and logarithmic spiral. Kawasaki et
ery specifically designed by companies such as GLEASON, KLIN-
al., (2015) proposed a computational method for remanufacturing
GELNBERG, and OERLIKON. These specialized machines usually
large-sized skew bevel gears using a CNC machining center and
employ a large cutter head with multiple cutting blades to pro-
a coordinate measuring machine. The pinion and gear members
vide high rigidity during the machining process. Therefore, they
were precisely machined by swarf cutting to guarantee good mat-
are highly productive and suitable for the mass production of spi-
ing performance. Wang et al., (2016) studied the CNC machining
ral bevel gears, referred to as the traditional approach in this work.
of equal-base circle bevel gears with a pot-shaped cutter. They
Despite their widespread usage, these methods have several defi-
proposed a method for modeling a pot-shaped cutter and calcu-
ciencies. First, gear manufacturing is proprietary in terms of ma-
lating the positions and postures of the cutter based on the equal-
chines, cutters, and machining parameters. For example, a face-
base circle bevel gear theory. Álvarez et al., (2018a, 2018b) analyzed
milled spiral bevel gear cannot be cut on machines designed for
the five-axis milling process for large spiral bevel gears using uni-
hobbing or face hobbing. Moreover, these machines are usually
versal multitasking machines. They compared different machin-
developed to manufacture only one specific type of gear with a
ing strategies, tool path patterns, and machining parameters for
certain size range. They are not applicable to any other gears with
both gear roughing and finishing operations and suggested the
very limited process flexibility.
best machining plans in terms of the machining time, tool wear,
The manufacturing of complex gears using general-purpose
and quality of machined surface. Li et al., (2020) proposed a novel
computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools is highly suit-

Received: April 18, 2022. Revised: September 15, 2022. Accepted: September 15, 2022
C The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Computational Design and Engineering. This is an Open Access article

distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits
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Figure 1: (a) A cylindrical cutter contacts at both boundary curves of a ruled surface and (b) tool interference induced by local nondevelopability
(Lartigue et al., 2003).
machining method for spiral bevel gears based on CNC machine
tools. The focus was on the construction of a communication con-
trol framework and an information management system for the
integration of gear design and manufacturing. An accurate mea-
surement method is proposed to obtain tooth surface model for
digital tooth contact analysis (TCA) (Wang et al., 2022), and it is
further applied in the accurate and intelligent machining (Tang et
al., 2022; Zhou et al., 2022).
Flank milling has also been applied to machine spiral bevel
gears by exploiting the situation when the tooth surface is or is
close to the ruled geometry (Zhou et al., 2017a). Multi-axis CNC
flank milling is advantageous over end milling in terms of ma-
chining efficiency and surface quality (Tönshoff et al., 2001; Harik
et al., 2013). Zhou et al., (2017a) approximated the tooth surfaces
of spiral bevel gears using a series of ruled surfaces. The approx-
imation results can be precisely machined using five-axis flank
milling. Furthermore, Zhou et al., (2017b) proposed a new tool path
planning strategy for accurate machining of the main gear con-
tact area, in which the accuracy directly affects the meshing per-
formance of the machined gears. Xu et al., (2021) proposed an effi-
cient method for five-axis flank milling of nonferrous spiral bevel
gears. The method simultaneously cuts the tooth surface and
tooth bottom using a filleted cutter with only one tool path to im-
prove the machining efficiency while maintaining high accuracy
in the main contact area. Bo et al., (2020) proposed a double-flank
milling method to machine both sides of the tooth surface of spi-
ral bevel gears using custom-shaped milling cutters. They (Escud-
ero et al., 2022) conducted machining experiments and demon-
strated reduced machining time and surface errors as compared
to traditional ball-end milling. However, they did not validate the
meshing performance of machined results.
The methods previously developed for five-axis flank milling
of complex gears suffer from the following deficiencies. Heuris-
tic tool path planning methods such as Zhou et al., (2017a, 2019)
may produce excessive errors on machined surfaces, which dete-
riorate their meshing performance. These methods lack the com-
putational flexibility (or adjusting parameters) necessary for a
cutter to adaptively contact the local geometry of a gear surface
to reduce deviations from the original design. In contrast, pre-
vious studies (Tsay & Her, 2001; Ding et al., 2009; Yi et al., 2018)
have shown that tool path planning driven by global optimization
is highly effective in improving the flank machining precision of
complex geometries. A cylindrical or conical cutter inevitably in-
duces substantial errors in the surface regions of the twist owing
to their nondevelopability (Lartigue et al., 2003). A better solution
is to use a formed cutter that reduces errors by creating sophis-
ticated tool engagement in these regions. To improve efficiency
and quality of free-form surface machining using formed cutters
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering | 2025
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is not a new idea. There are several relevant works that deal with
five-axis CNC flank machining of complex surfaces using curved
tools (Bo et al., 2016; Machchhar et al., 2017; Bo & Barton, 2019; Ra-
jain et al., 2022). Although form cutters are more expensive than
standardized straight cutters, to replace specialized machines
with CNC machine tools is still valuable and cost effective in
practice.
Therefore, this paper proposes a computational scheme to gen-
erate the tool path of a formed cutter in five-axis flank milling of
spiral bevel gears. The scheme employs heuristics and optimiza-
tion algorithms to sequentially determine the cutter geometry
and resulting optimal tool path. The objective is to minimize the
geometric deviations between the ideal gear design and machined
result. Similar to previous studies, the proposed approach does
not theoretically guarantee attaining global minimum, either. In
addition, a geometric method was developed as a simplified TCA
technique, which approximately evaluates the contact path of
a gear pair with a significantly higher computational efficiency
than traditional TCA methods. The evaluation results on a test
pair of spiral bevel gears demonstrate improved machining accu-
racy and meshing performance of the finished surfaces compared
to those obtained with previous methods. Thus, the effective-
ness of the proposed algorithms for optimal tool path planning
and cutter design for five-axis flank milling of spiral bevel gears
were verified. This study developed a feasible method for man-
ufacturing complex gears using general-purpose CNC machine
tools.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2
describes the preliminaries of tool path planning and the design
of a formed cutter in five-axis flank machining of free-form sur-
faces. Section 3 introduces the computational scheme proposed
to determine the geometry of a formed cutter and the resultant
optimal tool path that minimizes geometrical errors. This section
also presents the algorithms used to search for optimal solutions.
Section 4 presents the test results for a pair of spiral bevel gears
and compares them with those generated by previous methods.
The last section presents the concluding remarks and suggestions
for future research.
2. Preliminaries
2.1. Tool path planning in five-axis flank milling
The tooth surface of spatial gears is complex 3D geometry mathe-
matically represented by nonanalytic equations (Litvin & Fuentes,
2004). Spiral bevel gear is the most complex type among them and
generally described in the form of 3D mesh or free-form surface.
In five-axis flank milling of ruled surfaces, a cylindrical or conical
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Figure 2: Typical variation of transmission errors during the meshing process.

cutter inevitably induces geometric deviations while contacting
the surface rulings due to the local nondevelopability around the
contact region (see Fig. 1). θ is the angle extended by the tangent
vectors to the boundary curves at the corresponding end points
A and B in the figure. The surface geometry cannot be precisely
created in this manner unless it is fully developable. Spiral bevel
gears usually do not fall into this category, though. The shape pro-
duced by five-axis flank milling cannot exactly match the gear
design, thus deteriorating the meshing performances of the ma-
chined gears. A feasible solution for this problem is to eliminate
the geometric deviations through adjusting the cutter motion dur-
ing machining, namely tool path planning. Attaining this goal may
assure high meshing performances of the machined gears. Based
on this idea, the previous studies (Zhou et al., 2017a, 2019) devel-
oped heuristic methods that allow the envelope surface generated
by the cutter motion to contact at the middle of the gear surface.
The resulting tool path indeed improves the TCA assessment re-
sult of the machined surfaces compared to the one following the
surface rulings.
A CNC tool path consists of a sequence of cutter locations (CLs).
The cutter follows the motion interpolated from consecutive CLs.
A common goal in tool path planning is to minimize the errors
 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering | 2027

consider the cutter motion interpolated between CLs, i.e.

n−1  
interpolation
E= ∈∗ CLi −−−−−−−→ CLi+1 , (3)
i=0

where E is the total geometrical errors on the machined surface. It

is a function of the variables  chosen to define a tool path. In this
study, ∈∗ is estimated as the difference between the tool envelope
surface (Lartigue et al., 2003) constructed from CLi to CLi+1 and
the design surface. The optimal tool path T∗ thus becomes

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T ∗ = arg min(E, Q ). (4)

T∗ indicates the tool path determined by the set of variables

where total geometrical errors on the machined surface attain the
minimum.

2.2. Simplified TCA

Figure 3: The meshing process of a gear pair.
Traditional TCA methods involve solving highly nonlinear sys-
tem equations that require a lengthy computation process (Litvin
& Fuentes, 2004). It is infeasible to directly employ those meth-
ods as the objective function in most optimization schemes re-
lated to machining of spiral bevel gears. To overcome this diffi-
culty, we propose a simplified approach that approximately con-
ducts TCA and gives quantitative assessment accordingly. This ap-
proach consists of two geometric algorithms that characterize the
meshing process of a gear pair without considering load. The first
algorithm finds the contact point between a gear pair iteratively
through surface intersection. It follows a bi-section search proce-
dure shown below.

Figure 4: Approximate assessment for the contact path of a gear pair.

Figure 5: Terminologies of a gear surface.

that accumulate on the machined surface as (Yi et al., 2018)

n−1 
 
M
 CLi → CLi+1 , (1)
0

where n is the number of CLs and  is the error induced by the

cutter motion M from CLi to CLi+1 . Previous studies (Tsay & Her,
2001; Ding et al., 2009) independently adjust individual CLs by ne-
glecting the error induced between CLs. Those greedy approaches
are mathematically expressed as


n−1
Min  (CLi ) . (2)
0
To correctly conduct TCA requires identifying the start and end
The optimal solutions thus obtained are certainly not global positions of the current meshing process, denoted as φ start and
optima. Finding a tool path that yields minimized errors needs to φ end , respectively. The second algorithm is derived from analyzing
2028 | Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2022, Vol. 9, No. 5
Figure 6: Initial cutter profile design: (a) project iso-parametric curves onto the x–y plane and discretize the curves into a given number of points, and
(b) interpolate those points into a curve.
Figure 7: Generation of a CL for a formed cutter.
the typical curve of transmission error for a spiral bevel gear pair
and used to estimate these two positions (see Fig. 2).
A quantitative assessment criterion is needed to compare the
meshing performances (or contact performances) for different
gearing pairs. Previous studies have proposed to employ the con-
tact path, transmission error, and service life for this purpose. The
contact path is considered the most critical one among them, as
it also affects the other criteria. Hence, this work evaluates the
meshing performance of a gear pair only based on their contact
path. It is noted that other assessment criteria can also be used.
Algorithm 2 determines the start and end positions that define
a contact path during a meshing process. Suppose that a series
of m discrete points is generated along the path (see Fig. 4). Each
point pi on the pinion is written as sp (ui , vi ), where ui and vi are
the surface parameters in the u and v directions, respectively, with
both parameter values normalized as [0, 1]. The algorithm follows
the heuristic in spiral bevel gear design (Zhou et al., 2017a, 2017b);
namely the ideal contact path is along the middle curve of the
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pinion surface. The contact path deviation  is evaluated as
1   p
m
 g 
= ri + W · c p + ri + W · cg
2m
i=1
p
1, if ri > l p g
1, if ri > l g
p g
c = and c = , (5)
0, else 0, else
where
p
ri : the ratio between the arc length from sp (ui , vi ) to sp (ui , 0.5)
along the iso-parametric curve sp (ui , v) and the total curve length;
g
ri : the ratio between the arc length from sg (ui , vi ) to sg (ui , 0.5)
along the iso-parametric curve sg (ui , v) and the total curve length;
W: the penalty value imposed by edge contact;
l p : the threshold value indicating edge contact on the pinion
surface;
l g: the threshold value indicating edge contact on the gear sur-
face.
According to equation (5), the meshing performance worsens as
the contact path deviates from the center curve. The occurrence
of edge contacts during the meshing process increases the devia-
tion value by imposing the penalty value W. The equation would
provide a quantitative method for comparing contact paths re-
sulted from different gear designs or meshing conditions. The nu-
merical value estimated by equation (5) depends on the penalty
weight induced by edge contact.
3. Optimization of Tool Path Planning and
Cutter Geometry Design
This work aims to minimize the geometrical deviations between
the flank milled tooth surface and a given design of spiral bevel
gears via optimization of tool path planning and cutter geome-
try. Ideally, optimal solutions should be attained by adjusting de-
sign variables in both solution spaces simultaneously. The tool
path optimization is an iterative process controlled by multiple
termination criteria, including the smallest change percentage of
consecutive optimal solutions, the maximum number of itera-
tions, and the maximum number of subdivisions. It is highly diffi-
cult to construct an optimization scheme that effectively explores
two heterogeneous solution spaces at the same time. A feasible
method is to optimize the tool path and the cutter geometry se-
quentially. The solutions thus obtained are usually suboptimal
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Figure 8: Encoding a tool path using three curve forms (Chu et al., 2020).

Figure 9: Encoding of the cutter geometry.

in theory, but they are considered acceptable in practice as long

as the resultant meshing performance is significantly improved.
Based on this argument, we propose a computational scheme that
first generates initial geometry of a formed cutter from a heuristic
analysis of the gear design. An initial tool path is also determined
for the initial cutter. The scheme continues to optimally adjust
the tool path for further improvement. Figure 10: (a) A test pair of spiral bevel gears and (b) the contact path.

3.1. Initial cutter geometry

In this study, a generalized cutter is constructed by rotating a sultant cutter surface. We propose a heuristic method to compute
curved profile along a reference axis. Without loss of generality, an initial profile that yields satisfactory results in terms of geo-
the profile is represented as a planar Bézier curve. Specifying the metrical deviations. Suppose that the cutter is moving from the
curve control points determines the profile geometry and the re- toe end to the heel end on the design surface of a gear (see Fig. 5),
2030 | Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2022, Vol. 9, No. 5

Table 1: Parameter settings in algorithms 1 and 2. design. Thus, the curve parameter of Pi is properly extended to
assure that the resultant cutter covers the entire surface during
Parameter Value machining (see Fig. 6b). Specifically, it is extended with a value to
assure that the resultant cutter covers the entire surface during
φg 0.01 deg
ζ 0.2 mm machining. The value is determined by extrapolating Pi until the
n∗ 3 curve length is greater than that of the iso-parameter curve on the
φ p 0.01 deg heel side (u = 1). Besides, the cutter profile does not contain the
portion of a rounding radius. Since gear meshing will not occur on
the fillet surface produced by the portion on the machined result,

Table 2: Parameter settings in the SPSA and EM algorithms.
Algorithm Parameter Value
a 0.02
c 0.06
A 0.9
SPSA
α 0.602
γ 0.101
Maximum number of iterations 50
Adjustment range of cutter center coordinates ±0.01
Adjustment range of tilt angles ±0.04
Adjustment range of yaw angles ±0.04
EM δ 0.2
# of particles 50
Maximum number of iterations 100
Maximum number of iterations in local search 1
which corresponds to the u-direction in the surface representa-
tion. A set of iso-parametric v curves is generated by changing
the u parameter each time with an incremental value. Each curve
undergoes the following processing steps to determine the initial
cutter profile:
(1) Translate the start point to the origin of the coordinate sys-
tem.
(2) Project the translated curve onto the x–y plane, as shown
in Fig. 6a.
(3) Rotate the projected curve on the x–y plane so that the
curve tangent at the start point aligns with the positive y-
axis.
(4) Generate a given number of discrete points from the ro-
tated curve by varying an incremental value of the curve
parameter.
(5) For each point, compute the average position from the cor-
responding points on all the projected curves, as shown in
Fig. 6b.
(6) Construct a planar profile by interpolating the average set
of points on the x–y plane.
Note that the initial cutter profile is estimated from the pro-
jection of the iso-parametric curves of gear surface onto a plane,
which can be any plane. Here, the x–y plane is simply used as an
example to describe the proposed processing steps. The tool does
not have to touch the surface along planar curves. The initial cut-
ter profile can be improved by matching the envelope swept by
the cutter motion with the gear surface, particularly when the
surface is highly curved. However, the initial cutter profile need
not to be optimal in this case. Both the cutter geometry and tool
path will be iteratively adjusted for further improvement from ini-
tial solutions. Another reason for determining the initial profile
on a plane is that a formed cutter is normally defined by a pla-
nar profile rather than 3D geometry in practice. The planar profile
becomes the initial cutter profile Pi. The arc length of each iso-
parameter v curve may vary significantly due to the original gear
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this simplification does not affect the estimation of machining er-
rors or the subsequent tool path planning.
3.2. Initial tool path
The next step is to generate an initial tool path for the cutter ge-
ometry previously constructed. The heuristic method (Zhou et al.,
2017a) that allows a taper cutter to contact along the middle curve
of the gear surface is not directly applicable for a formed cutter.
A modified procedure is proposed to realize the similar idea, as
shown in Fig. 7.
(1) Obtain a set of discrete points by varying an incremental
value of the curve parameter from the middle and bottom
curves of the gear surface, respectively.
(2) Take a corresponding pair of points pm and pb obtained by
the previous step; di is the axial distance between pm and
pb.
(3) qb is the start point of the initial cutter profile Pi; translate
Pi so that qb coincides with pb.
(4) Find the intersection point qm between Pi and the sphere
centered at pb with the radius di.
(5) Suppose rb and rm are the cutter radius corresponding to
qb and qm, respectively; nb and nm are the unit normal
vector of the gear surface at pb and pm, respectively.
(6) Let the cutter contact the gear surface at pm and
om = pm + rmnm.
(7) The cutter axis tc is equal to the unit vector of ocom. The
cutter center point oc = om − ditc.
(8) Apply Steps (2) to (7) to each of the nZ points obtained by
Step (1). These points define the initial tool path in a dis-
crete manner.
The motion between two infinitesimally close positions of a
rigid body is best achieved by a helical motion, not by a rotation.
Such a discrepancy certainly reduces the precision of the result
obtained by Algorithm 2. The meshing performance produced by
the contact path determined by the algorithm works as an objec-
tive to optimize the finishing tool path in five-axis flank milling.
The optimal tool paths thus obtained can be suboptimal due to
the approximation nature of both Algorithm 2 and the perfor-
mance assessment procedure.
3.3. Optimization of tool path planning
The previous study (Chu et al., 2020) proposed a tool path encod-
ing scheme that minimizes geometrical errors on a finished sur-
face via tool path planning while preserving the continuity of the
cutter motion in five-axis flank milling. The cutter center point is
specified by a curve trajectory Ct , as shown in Fig. 8, which makes
use of three translational degrees of freedom (DOFs) in the cutter
motion. Defining the cutter axis along a tool path uses two ro-
tational DOFs, namely the yaw angle ϕ and the tilt angle θ. The
cutter axis varies when a cylindrical cutter is moving along a tool
path, so do the yaw and tilt angles. Suppose that the value of
each angle sweeps out a curve trajectory with respect to the curve

Figure 11: (a) Tool path generated by Zhou’s method for the pinion surface, (b) the contact points during the meshing process, and (c) error
distribution on the machined surface (units: mm).
parameter. The variation of the yaw and tilt angles can be thus
described by using Cϕ and Cθ , respectively. A tool path in five-axis
flank machining is completely defined by a space curve Ct and
two planar curves of univariate functions Cϕ , Cθ . In this condition,
the tool path generation problem becomes finding three sets of
curve control points that produce minimized errors on a finished
surface.
The initial tool path generated in Section 3.2 contains a set
of discrete CLs. Each CL is defined by the tool center points oc
and the cutter axis tc . To employ the encoding scheme that pre-
serves the continuity of the cutter motion requires converting
those CLs into proper curve representations. Suppose that a cu-
bic curve Ct (u) = ct0 + ct1 u + ct2 u2 + ct3 u3 interpolates the center
points {oc }. The curve control points ct0, ct1 , ct2 , and ct3 can be
solved by curve fitting techniques that minimize the mean square
errors between Ct and {oc }. Projecting the cutter axis tc onto the
machine coordinate system determines the yaw and tilt angles at
a CL (Xu et al., 2017). A set of discrete values can be obtained for
each angle, denoted as {ϕ i } and {θ i }. A similar curve fitting method
is applied to construct the corresponding curves Cϕ and Cθ from
{ϕ i } and {θ i }, respectively. As a result, the initial tool path is repre-
sented by Ct , Cϕ , and Cθ .
The tool path generation problem can be expressed in terms of
finding three sets of curve control points that produce minimized
errors. Instead of individual CLs, we adjust those control points si-
multaneously to search for optimal solutions. A series of contact
points is calculated from the boundary curve of the dedendum
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by increasing the curve parameter of an equal interval. For each
point, the next step is to estimate the corresponding surface nor-
mal. The cutter center point is next generated by offsetting a con-
tact point along the surface normal direction with a cutter radius.
A continuous curve that interpolates the center points works as
an initial solution for Ct that will be refined in subsequent opti-
mization. The curve control points can be solved by curve fitting
techniques that minimize the mean square errors between the
curve and those center points.
The previous study (Hsieh & Chu, 2012) proposed the stock
height method for estimating geometrical deviations between a
design surface and the machined result. The design surface is dis-
cretized into sample points. At each sampling point, two straight
lines are extended along the positive and negative normal direc-
tions at the distance of the cutter radius. The lengths of these lines
are updated after the cutter sweeps across them along a given tool
path. The envelope surface swept by the cutter is approximated by
interpolating a finite number of tool positions between consecu-
tive CLs. The deviations are calculated as the sum of the lengths
of the updated straight lines. The sampling density in the method
controls the estimation precision of the accumulated geometrical
deviations.
The previous study (Kuo et al., 2015) has verified the effective-
ness of Electromagnetism-like mechanism (EM) in optimization
of tool path planning for five-axis flank machining of ruled sur-
faces. EM is a stochastic optimization method that imitates the
attraction-repulsion mechanism of the electromagnetism theory
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Figure 12: (a) Tool path generated by the proposed method for the pinion surface, (b) the contact points during the meshing process, (c) the
convergence curve of the average machining error, and (d) error distribution on the machined surface (units: mm).

(Birbil & Fang, 2003). This algorithm represents a solution as a
charged particle within the solution space and its charge is deter-
mined by the objective function value. The electromagnetic force
between two particles pushes the particle with more charge to the
other. The magnitude of attraction or repulsion is proportional to
the objective function value. The search performance of the EM al-
gorithm highly depends on the quality of initial solutions. A SPSA
(simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation) technique
(Spall, 1997) was incorporated to find satisfactory initial solutions
for the EM algorithm to yield better optimal solutions. This work
employs the same approach. A particle in the algorithm repre-
sents a tool path by three sets of control points. The control points

Figure 13: (a) Tool path generated by Zhou’s method for the gear surface, (b) the contact points during the gear meshing, and (c) error distribution on
the machined surface.
that defines Ct are vectors in 3D space, while the ones for Cϕ and
Cθ are scalars.
3.4. Optimization of cutter geometry
The initial cutter profile Pi is represented as a cubic Bézier curve
with four control points P1 , P2 , P3 , and P4 in Fig. 9. Adjusting those
control points generates different curve shapes and resultant cut-
ter geometries. The same scheme used for the optimization of
tool path planning is applied to search for optimal control points
that yield minimal geometrical errors on a machined surface. The
SPSA technique is applied to compute initial solutions of satisfac-
tory quality; an EM algorithm then continues to improve the so-
lutions until attaining optimum or a given number of maximum
iterations. Each particle in the algorithm represents a cutter pro-
file specified by four Bézier control points, subject to the following
constraints:
(1) The first control point P1 is fixed on the dedendum circle
to ensure that the complete tooth surface can be created
during machining.
(2) The projected height of the last control point P4 onto the
y-axis is greater than the tooth height for the same reason
of (1).
(3) The control points P2 and P3 lie on the left side of the
line segment P1 P4 . This ensures that the profile is a convex
curve with respect to P1 P4 .
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering | 2033
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A feasible solution generated during the optimization process
must have control points that satisfy the above conditions; other-
wise, the solution becomes infeasible and is rejected.
4. Test Results
A pair of spiral bevel gears is used as test geometry to verify the
effectiveness of the methods proposed for optimal tool path gen-
eration and cutter design. As shown in Fig. 10, the pinion and gear
have 20 and 61 teeth, respectively. The detailed design parameters
of the gear pair are not disclosed due to commercial confidential-
ity. Different methods will be evaluated on the test geometry for
cross-comparison. The first one is the heuristic method proposed
by Zhou et al., (2017a), in which a straight cutter is moving along
the middle curve of the gear surface. The method developed by
our current work is then applied to generate optimal tool path
of the same cutter. Geometrical errors and the meshing perfor-
mance of the machined surfaces will be estimated and compared.
Lastly, the greedy approach described in Section 3 is applied to se-
quentially optimize the cutter geometry and tool path for further
improvement.
All the methods are implemented in Rhino 3D v6 using Python.
Rhino 3D is a commercial CAD system that provides APIs (Applica-
tion Programming Interfaces) in multiple programming languages
for developing customized functions or prototyping. Proper pa-
rameter settings for meta-heuristic algorithms are usually based
on trials and depend on the problem to be solved. Table 1 lists the
2034 | Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2022, Vol. 9, No. 5

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Figure 14: (a) Tool path generated by the proposed method for the gear surface and (b) the contact points during the gear meshing, (c) the convergence
curve of the average machining error, and (d) error distribution on the machined surface.

Figure 15: The cutter profile design for a form cutter.
parameter settings in algorithms 1 and 2. The incremental angle
and the threshold of the arc length are determined by trial and
error to achieve a tradeoff between the computational time and
precision. The value of n∗ is chosen as 3, as the maximum number
of simultaneous contacts between a spiral bevel gear and pinion
is 2. Table 2 lists the parameter settings in the EM and SPSA al-
gorithms, suggested by our previous studies (Kuo et al., 2015; Chu
et al., 2020). The minimum width between two teeth of the pin-
ion is estimated as 27.9 mm. In this case, the cutter diameter at
the bottom end is chosen as 20 mm to avoid tool collision with
teeth during machining. The nose radius and the taper angle of
the cutter are chosen as 5 mm and 15◦ , respectively.
Figure 11 shows the tool path generated by Zhou’s method
(Zhou et al., 2017a) for flank machining of the gear surface using
a straight taper cutter. The tool path is specified by the trajec-
tory of the cutter center and the cutter axis at discrete locations
along the path. The deviation value of the contact path between
the machined surface and the ideal gear is estimated as 1.438 us-
ing the simplified TCA method. As shown in the figure, the contact
points scatter around the middle region without the occurrence of
edge contacts during the meshing process. This indicates that the
machining precision of the pinion surface leads to a satisfactory
meshing performance. Next, our tool path planning method is ap-
plied to cut the same pinion surface. Figure 12 shows the optimal
tool path and the subsequent meshing result. It also presents the
convergence process for the average machining error from a set of
6000 sampling points on the machined surface. In all the following
tests, 300 and 20 points are sampled from the u and v directions,
respectively (see Fig. 5). The deviation value is estimated as 0.805
by equation (4) and no edge contact occurs during the meshing
process. The optimal tool path performs better than the one de-
termined by the heuristic method in this regard. The contact path
moving further toward the surface middle verifies the improve-
ment.
It is necessary to examine the meshing performance between
both machined pinion and gear. Figure 13 shows the result gener-
ated by Zhou’s method for the gear surface using the same cut-
ter. The deviation value between the machined surface and the
finished pinion shown in Fig. 12 is estimated as 504.82 using the
simplified TCA method. Edge contacts occur along the entire con-
tact path, indicating unsatisfactory gear meshing. Figure 14 shows
the result generated by our path planning method. The deviation
value is slightly reduced to 503.23 with edge contacts still exist-
ing during the meshing process. Our method keeps improving the
machining precision (see Fig. 14c), but both methods fail to pro-
duce machined surfaces that can serve for practical use. A possi-
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering | 2035
ble reason is that a straight cutter inevitably produces excessive
errors on highly twisted geometries like the pinion surface. The er-
ror distribution on the machined surface may also be unfavorable
in terms of gear meshing.
Figure 15 shows the initial cutter profile for machining the pin-
ion calculated by the method described in Section 3.1. The profile
is represented as a cubic Bézier curve with four control points.
The cutter geometry is constructed by rotating the profile around
the y-axis. Note that the nose radius is not shown in the cutter
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profile. Figure 16 shows the initial tool path for the form cutter
determined by the algorithm described in Section 3.2. We then
evaluate the contact path deviation between the machined pinion
and the ideal gear. The evaluation result is significantly improved
from 503.23 (a straight taper cutter) to 1.068. Edge contact is com-
pletely eliminated during the meshing process in this case. The
contact points are also moved toward the surface middle. The re-
sults validate the effectiveness of the methods developed for the
formed cutter design and the initial tool path on machining the
pinion.
The test results are summarized as follows. Figures 11 and 12
show the machining results of the pinion surface using a straight
cutter. The deviation value measures the meshing performance
between the machined pinion and the ideal gear estimated by
the simplified TCA. Figures 14 and 15 show the machining re-
sults of the gear surface using the same cutter. Despite of the
smaller errors on the machined surface, the deviation value es-
timated from the two machined surfaces is not acceptable. No-
tice that the value measures the meshing performance between
both machined pinion and gear. The unsatisfactory performance
necessities the use of a formed cutter in five-axis flank machining
of the pinion surface. Figures 16 and 17 show that the proposed
optimization scheme further reduces the errors on the machined
pinion. As a result, the meshing performance between both ma-
chined pinion and gear is improved with a smaller deviation value.
Note that the color plot shown in the test results indicates un-
signed errors on a machined surface, which do not distinguish be-
tween overcut and undercut. The previous work (Hsieh et al., 2013)
has verified the effectiveness minimizing the amount of overcut
(or undercut) using the optimization scheme employed in this
study.
The EM algorithm is then applied to optimally adjust the ini-
tial tool path to further improve the meshing performance. The
objective of the optimization remains the same, i.e. to minimize
geometrical deviations on the machined surface compared to the
ideal pinion. Figure 17 shows the optimal tool path of the same
form cutter and the convergence curve of the average machin-
ing error. The contact path deviation is progressively improved to
0.501 and the contact points are moved further toward the surface
middle. Such improvements demonstrate the effectiveness of our
tool path planning method. Important implications from all the
test results are summarized as follows:
(1) Both Zhou’s method and the proposed planning method
work effectively on five-axis flank machining of the test
gear surface using a straight taper cutter, producing sat-
isfactory meshing performance without the occurrence of
edge contact. However, neither method produces an ac-
ceptable machining accuracy for the flank milling of the
pinion surface. Edge contacts occur along the contact path
of the machined surface.
(2) The form cutter constructed by our proposed method sig-
nificantly improves the meshing performance of the ma-
chined pinion, while moving along the initial tool path
2036 | Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2022, Vol. 9, No. 5
Figure 16: (a) Initial tool path generated for the form cutter, (b) the contact points during the gear meshing, and (c) error distribution on the machined
surface.
heuristically generated. Edge contact is completely elimi-
nated along the contact path.
(3) The same form cutter results in better meshing perfor-
mance while moving along the optimal tool path generated
by the proposed optimization scheme. Contact points are
moved further toward the middle region of the machined
pinion.
5. Conclusions
Recent studies have developed gear-flank milling technologies
that utilize general-purpose CNC machine tools. Through effec-
tive tool path planning, the geometrical deviations of the ma-
chined gears can be controlled within a tight tolerance of the de-
sign specification to ensure high meshing performance. To apply
this idea to the five-axis flank milling of highly complex gears re-
mains a challenging task. Excessive errors inevitably occur dur-
ing the flank milling of a spiral bevel pinion using a cylindrical
or conical cutter. A form cutter can reduce errors by geometri-
cally matching the cutter shape with the pinion surface. There-
fore, we propose a computational scheme for optimal tool path
planning and form cutter design for five-axis flank milling of spi-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcde/article/9/5/2024/6713622 by Xi'an Jiaotong University Law School user on 27 October 2022
ral bevel gears. The optimization objective is to reduce the ge-
ometrical errors on the machined results. A two-stage method
was developed to estimate the contact path during the mesh-
ing process of the gear pair. In the first stage, the intersection
between the gear and pinion surfaces is calculated in a binary
search involving iterative rotations of a gear toward a station-
ary pinion. The second stage determines the start and end posi-
tions of a complete meshing process based on heuristics derived
from the typical error transmission curve of a spiral bevel gear
pair. A simplified method was developed to approximately evalu-
ate the meshing performance more efficiently than the traditional
TCA. The evaluation result characterizes the extent to which the
contact path deviates from the middle curve of the gear surface.
In addition, an optimization scheme was employed to search for
the optimal tool paths. It determines the initial solutions using
the SPSA technique and continues to improve the solutions us-
ing an EM algorithm. A tool path is encoded by three continuous
curves representing the cutter center trajectory and the change
in the yaw and tilt angles, respectively. Such encoding preserves
the continuity of the cutter motion during optimization and low-
ers the dimensions of the solution space. Heuristics were also de-
veloped to determine the initial design of the form cutter and
 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering | 2037

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Figure 17: (a) Optimal tool path generated for the form cutter, (b) the contact points during the gear meshing, (c) the convergence curve of the average
machining error, and (d) error distribution on the machined surface.
2038 | Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2022, Vol. 9, No. 5
corresponding initial tool path that yield a satisfactory solution
quality.
A pair of real spiral bevel gears was used as the test geome-
try for comparing the methods proposed in this work with the
previous heuristic that guides a straight cutter to move along the
middle curve of the gear surface. The previous method failed to
produce an acceptable machining accuracy on the pinion sur-
face. The resultant meshing performance was poor and showed
edge contacts. The form cutter constructed by our method did not
have edge contacts along the initial tool path generated heuris-
tically. Moving along the optimal tool path, the cutter can fur-
ther improve the meshing performance by shifting the contact
points toward the middle of the gear surface. The simulation re-
sults demonstrate that the proposed optimization scheme en-
sures satisfactory meshing quality of the finished gear pair. Thus,
this work provides feasible solutions for five-axis flank milling of
spiral bevel gears using CNC machine tools. Because the mesh-
ing performance greatly depends on how the geometrical devia-
tions spread across the machined surface, future work will aim
to accurately control the error distribution via tool path planning.
Optimizing flank milling of both the gear and pinion surfaces si-
multaneously is also important.
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
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