Research on module development for tooth flank topography measurement of rectangular spline gauges based on a gear measuring instrument

Abstract Rectangular spline gauges are widely used in military and civilian fields, such as aircraft, armored tanks, armed helicopters, automobiles, and engineering machinery, serving as irreplaceable transmission components.With the rapid development of the major equipment manufacturing industry in China, the measurement of tooth flank topography features of rectangular spline gauges—such as tooth alignment error, adjacent pitch error, and cumulative pitch error, which affect force transmission has gradually come into the focus of precision measurement.However, there is currently no dedicated measuring equipment for rectangular spline gauges in the metrology field. Leveraging the similarity between spline and gear transmission principles, this applied case study proposes the development of an automated measurement software module based on a gear measuring instrument. This module enables the measurement of tooth flank topography features of rectangular spline gauges, thereby providing a high-precision metrological solution for such gauges.