Material Customized Toolpath Generation for the Near‐Net Shape Repair Manufacturing of Wear‐Damaged Gear Teeth

The manufacturing industry increasingly relies on laser metal deposition (LMD) for gear repair and manufacturing. This paper studies the repair process of a gear tooth, starting with the design and milling of a groove that serves as the substrate to rebuild the tooth. The location of this groove is such that the interface between the substrate and the LMD‐manufactured tooth is not on the gear root, which is the region of highest bending stress accumulation. The paper addresses the generation of the parameter‐fitted toolpath sets for reconstructing the damaged tooth starting from the groove. The toolpath generated for building the tooth accounts for the required postmachining by reconstructing an enlarged version of the nominal tooth. This study also evaluates two toolpath strategies for filling the groove, with the second strategy adding tracks on both gear faces. This paper contributes to the research on gear repair by LMD by demonstrating the geometric feasibility for gear teeth reconstruction on a milled groove, considering stress accumulation and postmachining issues. Optical microscopy of cross‐sections of the manufactured samples shows high deposition quality and the absence of lack‐of‐fusion defects. The measured hardness in the reconstructed tooth is 213 HV on average, which is consistent with the literature for AISI 316L but 200 HV lower than the hardness reported in gear repair by LMD with other materials. Geometrically, the built tooth is larger than the nominal, as intended. The results also demonstrate that the second strategy for groove filling is eight times more effective for reducing the material underdeposition on the gear faces.