Inductive hardening of teeth of gearwheels

Abstract

In a method for manufacturing a gearwheel, a gearwheel blank is clamped in a workholder of a multi-axis machine tool. A milling head is clamped in a tool holder which is rotated by a spindle drive to enable the milling head to mill out tooth spaces of the gearwheel blank to thereby create a gearwheel having teeth. After replacing the milling head in the tool holder with an inductor, the inductor is inserted successively between two adjacent teeth of the gearwheel and supplied with alternating current from a current supply device of the spindle drive to inductively heat at least one of the two adjacent teeth. The inductor in the tool holder is then replaced with a machining tool to remachine the teeth of the gearwheel.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.