Design, Modeling and Analysis of Indexing
Head of Milling Machine
Syed Amjad Ahmad1 ,Umair Munir2 ,Muhammad Abubakar3 ,Muhammad Moaz4 ,Khizer sadique5
Department of, Mechanical Engineering
NFC, Institute of Engineering and Fertilizer Research
Faisalabad, Pakistan
Hod.mech@iefr.edu.pk
Abstract— The goal of the project was to build an
indexing head of a milling machine which would
provide versatility and add a function to the machining
capabilities of the milling machine. To design the system
and all parts separately using the design tools stick as
solid works and auto cad and analysis with different
materials by software's such as ansys to ensured high
precision in the indexing processed to reduce the failure
risk. The basic purpose of the indexing head is to
achieving the correct angular divisions. The purpose of
our project is to minimize the cost as well as the weight
of the device, making the indexing operation easy to
understand. We will work on worm and worm wheel of
the highest quality to give us a final gearing ratio 1:40
meaning forty revolutions of the crank handle will
result in one complete revolution of the chuck. The basic
parts of the dividing head are the casing, worm and
worm wheel and the shaft used to transmit power. Each
part will be fabricated after passing through rigorous
testing and quality control to prove the longevity of the
indexing head.
Index Terms— Indexing Head, Milling Machine, Gear
Design, Analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
Milling is the machining process of using rotary
cutters to remove material from a work piece by
advancing (or feeding) in a direction at an angle with
the axis of the tool. It covers a wide variety of different
operations and machines, on scales from small
individual parts to large, heavy-duty gang milling
operations. It is one of the most commonly used
processes in industry and machine shops today for
machining parts to precise sizes and shapes. One of the
most important attachments for milling machine is
indexing head. These are used to divide circumference
of work piece into equally spaced divisions when
milling gear teeth, squares, hexagons, and octagons.
They can be right or left handed depending on which
end you have it assembled. Also used to rotate work
piece at predetermined ratio to table feed rate. Dividers
and compasses are drawing instruments that have been
,
used since antiquity to measure distances, transfer
length from one drawing to another, and draw circles.
Proceeding section presents relevant literature that has
been reviewed in order to establish a theoretical
foundation for the study. An introduction to gear
design, bearing design and shaft design with a focus
on the nomenclature and the general equations that are
used for design these peripheries is presented.
R.G. Desavale and V.G. Salunkhe in 2015 [1] worked
on Damage Detection of Roller Bearing System Using
Experimental Data. They used the study of vibration
response of roller bearings by using mathematical
model.
DENG Xingqiao, WANG Jueling, WANG Jinge,
CHEN Shouan and YANG Jie in 2015 [2] worked on
a novel specific type of worm drive, so-called end face
engagement worm gear (EFEWD). It is originally
presented to minimize or overcome the gear backlash.
Different factors including contact curves, tooth
profile, lubrication angle and the induced normal
curvature are taken into account to investigate the
meshing characteristics and create the profile of a
novel specific type of worm drive through
mathematical models and theoretical analysis.
M. Estremsa , M. Arizmendia, W. E. Cumbicusa, A.
Lópeza in 2015 [3] worked on measuring the clamping
forces on cylindrical work pieces. ALI Reza
Nezamabadi, EHSAN Soury and ARASH Houshmand
in 2014 [4] investigated on the performance of worm
gears influenced by the position of the contact pattern.
Investigation shows that by decrease in size of the
contact pattern area the lubricant film thickness
between worm and worm wheel teeth will be
decreased and lubricant temperature as a criterion for
worm gears performance will be increased.
A. Chasalevris, Fadi Dohnal and Ioannis Chatzisavvas
in 2014 [5] designed and investigated an experimental
roller bearing system with an elastic rotor mounted in
worn journal bearings. They operated the system at
run-up and run-down conditions and the response is
analyzed with emphasis on passage through the first
critical speed. Wear in one journal bearing is
artificially produced and two cases of wear depth are A. Worm and worm gear design
investigated, one of 20% of bearing radial clearance
Indexing head worm gear set is designed for
and one of 40%.
indexing head using initial conditions selected on
A. Chasalevris and D. Sfyris in 2013 [6] use a very the basis of ANSI/AGMA 6022-C93 and
recent analysis of the exact analytical solution of the ANSI/AGMA 6034-C92 standards.
Reynolds equation for the lubrication of the plain
Table 1
journal bearing with finite length in order to evaluate
the impedance forces of the fluid film and define them
in closed form analytical expressions.

II. MATERIAL SELECTION

Our project is composed of different parts or
Components. While selecting the materials, the basic
question is how do we go about selecting a material for
a given part? Because if different parts have to interact
then material choice becomes limited.

Different factors are taken into account in order to

select a suitable material for our application, these
factors include material properties, cost and
availability and type of processing required.

Cast Iron is selected for indexing head housing

because of ease of availability and easy
manufacturing. Hard material was required for
housing as is has to bear the stress produced by inner
system.

Hardened Steel is selected for roller bearing because

bearing is stress bearing part used for support of shaft,
it has to be strong enough to bear stresses. Most of the
readily available bearings are hardened steel bearings.
So, same material is selected as we have to decide
required diameter and ensure its availability in market.

Engineering Steel (070M20) is selected for shaft

material as its brittleness is lesser, it offers good
machining and welding characteristics and it can
transmit power more effecientely as compared to other
materials. EN3B Engineering Steel is suitable for low
stress engineering applications and can be case
hardened.

Phosphor-bronze is selected for gears manufacturing

as its brinell hardness is greater. Its machinability
rating is also larger which makes it suitable to be used
as a material for gears manufacturing. The gears made
with phosphor-bronze have good teeth finishing.

III. DESIGN OF INDEXING HEAD PARTS

Design parameters of Indexing Head parts are
calculated by ASMI/ANSI standard equations.
 Required speed ratio is taken 40:1, center distance is Table 3
75mm and rotational speed of work=m is taken as 60
rpm.

All equations used and values of evaluated parameters

are listed in table 1.

B. Shaft Design

Shaft is designed on the bases of power transmited

between worm and worm gear. ASMI standard
equation for shaft design is used to calculate the
diameter of worm shaft and worm gear shaft.

Torque and moments are calculated from power and

loads act on shaft, and other perameters are taken from
shaft material used (Engineering Steel-070M20).
Table 2
Force Worms Bearing Loads
Selected
Shaft Calculated Diaeter Diameter Bearing A Bearing B

Worm Shaft 16.053mm 17mm

Wt Wr1 =91.2684 Wr4 =91.2694
Worm Gear Shaft 24.94mm 25mm Wr Wr2 =332.228 Wr5 =332.228

Wx Wr3 =4563.94 Wr6 =4563.94

C. Bearing Selection T.Radial Loads WrA =4232.7 WrB =4897.02

To select bearing first bearing loads were calculated Worms-Gear Bearing Loads
acting on them due to worm and worm gear by ASMI Bearing C Bearing D
standard equations.
Wt Wr7 =1825.39 Wr10 =1825.39
Figure 1 Shows the bearing loads produced by worm
and worm gear. Wr Wr8 =332.228 Wr11 =332.228

Wx Wr9 =912.79 Wr12 =912.79

T.Radial Loads WrC =1750.06 WrD =2342.75

Bearings were selacted for both worm shaft and worm

gear shaft and their life time was calculated according
to their dynamic load rating and the load acting on
them (calculated above).

Figure 1: Bearing Loads

D. Analysis
To analyse the design model two steps were involved
first to calculate the streses by standard and then
compaired with finit element analysis result.
E. Calculation of Bending Stress and Contact /stress
By AGMA Method
Wilfred Lewis introduced an equation for finding the
bending stress in gear tooth in which the tooth form
entered into the formulation. The equation, announce
in 1892, still remains as the basic equation for most
gear designs today.
To derive the Lewis equation, referred fig2, which
shows a cantilever of cross sectional dimensions F and
t, length l and the transmitted tangential load across the
face width. Therefore the bending stress is,
Figure 2: Gear tooth considered as a cantilever beam [2].
F. Deformation of bending stress and contact stress
by finite element analysis
Finite element analysis is the numerical solution of the
behavior mechanical components that are acquired by
discretizing the mechanical components into a small
finite number of building blocks (known as elements)
and by analyzing those mechanical components for
their acceptability and reliability.
ANSYS is a supreme, computer aided engineering
(CAE) tool used that leading large scale manufacturers
worldwide rely on, for their critical engineering.
For over 40 years, ANSYS has been the choicest
analysis solution in every leading major industry,
including medical, heavy machinery, shipbuilding,
automotive, defense, automotive and aerospace
industries.
The worm gears contact model generated in Solid
Works 14.0 software package and the fig. shows the
finite element model of the worm gear pairs with
applied boundary conditions. 3D tetrahedral mesh
with element size 5 to 6 mm is used for mesh
generation of the gear models. ANSYS 15.0 software
package is used for the analysis.
a. Bending stress determination for pinion by using
FEA

a. Bending stress calculation :

𝑊𝑡 𝑋 𝑃
σ=
𝐹𝑋𝑦

6382.244 𝑋 (3.14/9.424)
σ=
20.1 𝑋 0.389
Figure 3: Bending stress of the pinion
σ=244.408 Mpa
The boundary condition was applied to the FEM
b. Contact stress calculation :
model of gear tooth as per the Lewis beam strength
method for the determination of bending stress. Fig.3
shows that the maximum Von-mises stress is
developed at the root of the pinion tooth of 233.57
MPa. Thus, the maximum Von-mises stress developed
6382.244 𝑋 1.5 𝑋 1.0479 𝑋 1 𝑋 1.22 𝑋 1 1/2
σ= 137( ) by FEA is almost nearer to the bending stress as
20.1 𝑋 120 𝑋 0.1568
calculated by AGMA standards.
σ= 777Mpa
b. Contact stress determination by using FEA
Figure 4: Contact stress of the worm and worm gear
Figure 4 shows that, the maximum Von-mises
stress of 754.95 Mpa is developed at surface contact
point of the teeth. The closer view of the contact
stress at the contact point can be seen in fig..
Figure 5: Contact stress of helical gear pair of the teeth.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The work done primarily focused on validation of
the Lewis bending strength and AGMA theory using
Finite Element approach. The geometric modeling of
the helical gear tooth profile was done with proper
boundary conditions applied to the finite element
model of the helical gear pair. The FEA results
obtained are very close to the AGMA standards
results.
a. Comparison of Bending stress results:-
Table 4
Bending stress by Bending stress by
ANSYS
AGMA (MPa) Natran 8.5 (MPa)
244.43 233
b. Comparison of Surface Contact stress results:-
Table 5
Contact stress by Contact stress by Difference
ANSYS
AGMA (MPa) Natran 8.5 (MPa) (In %)
754.95 777 2.83%
By observing the theoretical and FEA results, error
percentage is very less i.e, 4.43% in bending stress and
about 2.83% error in surface contact stress. So, this
shows that our designed model is safe and can be
manufactured as designed.
Good results are obtained as well as good
understanding of the design of indexing head. The
understanding is viewed as just as important as the
results it is this knowledge which will allow an engineer
to improve a design. As a future work, design of worm
gear assembly, bearings and shafts can be performed.
REFERENCES
1. Chasalevris, A. "Evaluation of the finite journal bearing
characteristics, using the exact analytical solution of the
Reynolds equation." Tribology International, 2013.
2. Desavale, R.G. "Damage Detection of Roller Bearing
System Using Experimental Data." 12th International
Conference on Vibration Problems,ICOVP,2015
3. Estremsa, M. "Measurement of clamping forces in a 3 jaw
chuck through an instrumented Aluminium ring."
Procedia Engineering, 2015.
4. Kazama, Toshiharu. "Lubrication Characteristics of a
Temperature-Viscosity-ControlledHydrodynamic
Journal Bearing: Prototype and Experiment." Tribology
Online, 2016.
5. Park, Jung-Koo. "Stability analyses and experiments of
spindle system using new type of slot- restricted gas
journal bearings." Tribology International, 2004.
6. Paulins, Karlis. "Spiral Bevel Gears with Optimised
Tooth-End Geometry." Procedia Engineering, 69.
7. Xingqiao, DENG. "Parametric Analysis of the End Face
Difference Engagement Worm Gear." Chinese Journal of Mechanical
Engineering, 2015.
(In %)
4.43 %