Working with Gears, Splines, Sprockets, and Flutes

aPriori can cost parts that include gears, as well as parts that include flutes, splines, or sprockets. Geometry extraction recognizes these in your CAD model as AxiGroove GCDs. If your part includes gears, flutes, splines, or sprockets that are not represented in your CAD model, you can explicitly add them as AxiGroove GCDs by using the Component Viewer and the Gear Definition dialog. In addition, if your part includes gears, flutes, splines, or sprockets that are roughly or incompletely represented in your CAD model, you can use the Gear Definition dialog to edit and supplement the extracted AxiGroove properties.

Supported AxiGroove types include the following:

• Internal and external spur gears

• Internal and external helical gears

• Straight and spiral bevel gears

• Internal and external splines

• Sprockets

• Flutes

Note that while Flutes are extracted as AxiGroove GCDs, they are routed, by default, to milling processes that are not specific to gear making (specialized gear-making cutting mills and tool paths are not used in this case).

aPriori does not currently support the following:

• Face gears

• Worm and screw gears

• Racks

• Hypoid gears

• Incomplete patterns of teeth, sector or partial gears, gears that skip teeth, and gears that have variations among the teeth—only GCDs that are fully symmetric with respect to an axis are supported.

• Gears whose valleys have protrusions

See Controlling What Gets Recognized as an AxiGroove for more information. See also Gear Type.

Gear recognition and costing is supported for the following process groups:

• 2-Model Machining

• Bar&Tube

• Casting

• Forging

• Powder Metal

• Stock Machining

Specialized gear-making machines include the following:

• Bevel Gear Cutting Machine

• Broach