Form Deviation Measurement of Helical Gear Tooth Flank Using Phase-shifting Laser Interferometry

This paper introduces an oblique-incidence interferometry to measure the form deviation of helical gear tooth flank. First, based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we propose the design principles and design procedure of the optical system specifically. With the help of the simulation software, we determine the characteristics and position of the optical components in the measurement system. Second, the collected interference fringe pattern (IFP) is highly foreshortening and distorted, and we systematically introduce the procedure of IFP processing to obtain the form deviation from the IFP. In the experiment, we build an experimental table according to the previous design result, and collect the IFP of measured tooth flank and standard tooth flank respectively. Moreover, the relative form deviation of the two tooth flank is calculated with the proposed methods. Experimental result shows that the design method of optical system and the IFP processing methods are feasible to measure the form deviation of helical gear tooth flank.