Mechanical Engineering - Production Engineering - Discussion

Gear lapping is an operation after heat treatment process.

Lapping is a finishing operation in grinding so this process comes after the heat treatment.

Common application for the gear lapping is "DIFF LAPPING" is the lapping of the gear teeth in a vehicles differential to improve gear life and increase strength by removing minor surface.

Gear lapping is the process of imparting a very fine finish and high degree of accuracy to gear teeth. Lapping typically improves the wear properties of gear teeth.

To ensure smooth and quiet running, the Gears and Pinions are lapped after hardening. Lapping is accomplished by running mating pairs together in a gear lapping machine and feeding a liquid abrasive compound under pressure into the gear pair. The compound removes small amounts of metal as the gears rotate, thus refining the tooth surface and achieve desired contact pattern.

We used surface hardening process to achieve high hardness at outside surface of a gear. After that gear lapping operation is introduced to polish and finish the external surface of the gear.