When one is under a great deal of stress, they have a choice to either internalize the stress or to express it. Some express it through exercise, some drown their sorrows at the neighborhood pub, and some choose to berate others. In gearing, there are situations when internalizing the gear mesh is desirable. For these applications, we specify ring gears.
Internal gears, ring gears, and internal ring gears are interchangeable terms for the same type of gear. These gears are composed of a cylindrical shape having teeth inside a circular ring. The gear teeth of an internal gear typically mesh with the teeth of a spur gear. Spur gears have a convex-shaped tooth profile and internal gears have reentrant shaped tooth profile; this characteristic is opposite of internal gears. The formulas for calculating the dimensions of internal gears and their interferences are quite different than those of other gearing.
Figure 1 presents the mesh of an internal gear and external gear. Of vital importance are the working pitch diameters (dw) and working pressure angle (αw). They can be derived from center distance (a) and equations detailed below.
Table 1 shows the formulas for calculating the geometry of a profile shifted internal gear and a non-shifted external gear. In this type of gear system, it is common for one or both members to be profile shifted in order to overcome the various interference fits.
If the center distance (a) is known, then x1 and x2 can be obtained from the inverse calculations of items 4 thru 8 of Table 1. These inverse formulas are detailed in Table 2.
There are three different types of interference can occur with internal gears: involute interference, trochoid interference, and trimming interference.
1. Involute interference (Figure 2) occurs when the distance between the dedendum of the external gear and the addendum of the internal gear is too narrow and the gears cannot mesh properly. It is prevalent when the number of teeth of the external gear is small. Involute interference can be avoided by observing the following cited conditions:
Equation 2 is true only if the tip diameter of the internal gear is bigger than the base circle:
For a standard internal gear, where α = 20°, Equation 4 is valid only if the number of teeth is z2 > 34.
2. Trochoid interference refers to an interference occurring at the addendum of the external gear and at the dedendum of the internal gear during recess tooth action. This interference is due to the distance between the teeth being too shallow. It tends to happen when the difference between the numbers of teeth of the two gears is small. Equation 5 presents the condition for avoiding trochoidal interference.
where αa1 is the pressure angle of the spur gear tooth tip:
In the meshing of an external gear and a standard internal gear where the pressure angle α = 20°, trochoid interference is avoided if the difference of the number of teeth, z2 – z1, is larger than 9. (Figure 3)
3. Trimming interference occurs in the radial direction in that it prevents the pulling of the gears apart. Thus, the mesh must be assembled by sliding the gears together with an axial motion. It tends to happen when the numbers of teeth of the two gears are very close. Equation 8 indicates how to prevent this type of interference.
This type of interference can occur in the process of cutting an internal gear with a pinion cutter. Should that happen, there is danger of breaking the tooling.
Table 3 shows the limit for the pinion cutter to prevent trimming interference when cutting a standard internal gear, with pressure angle α0 = 20°, and no profile shift, i.e., x0 = 0.
There will be an involute interference between the internal gear and the pinion cutter if the number of teeth of the pinion cutter ranges from 15 to 22 (z0 = 15 to 22) .
Table 4 shows the limit for a profile shifted pinion cutter to prevent trimming interference while cutting a standard internal gear. The correction (x0) is the magnitude of shift, which was assumed to be: x0 = 0.0075 z0 + 0.05.
There will be an involute interference between the internal gear and the pinion cutter if the number of teeth of the pinion cutter ranges from 15 to 19 (z0 = 15 to 19).
When using internal ring gears, you can develop a gear system with a high reduction ratio in a compact space. However, there are many considerations regarding the reduction ratio, interference possibilities, and design window dimensions.
