ABSTRACT
The meshing of two toothed bodies is imitated when machining a gear using a continuous indexing method of tooth flank machining. Under such a scenario, the work gear and the gear cutting tool perform motions in a properly timed manner. The interaction of the imaginary gear to be machined and the generating surface of the gear cutting tool (which is also a phantom surface) can be interpreted as a type of virtual gear mesh. The virtual mesh of the imaginary gear to be machined and the generating surface of the gear cutting tool are referred to as the gear machining mesh. The gear machining mesh allows for interpretation in the form of a work gear-to-generating surface mesh, or briefly, G-to-T mesh. The kinematics of most gear machining methods is not limited to the motions required for the gear machining meshes.
