Forsch Ingenieurwes (2019) 83:529–535

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10010-019-00358-1

ORIGINALARBEITEN/ORIGINALS

Visualization of phase differences between tooth helix deviations

using graph theory
D. Iba1 · H. Noda2 · H. Inoue2 · M. Kim3 · I. Moriwaki4

Received: 31 March 2019 / Accepted: 4 July 2019

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to create eye-friendly network images representing manufacturing error of gears which cause
vibration and noise during operation. Especially, this paper proposes a visualization method of phase differences between
tooth helix deviations. Firstly, the tooth helix deviations of a gear were measured. Then, the DC components in the measured
deviation data were eliminated, and a Gaussian filter with a suitable wavelength diminished the roughness components in
the measured deviation data for extracting shape deviation components. Furthermore, correlation coefficients were derived
by calculating the inner product between the deviation data of all teeth for acquisition of the phase differences. Then,
a network image of the phase differences between the tooth helix deviations was generated by regarding each tooth and
correlation coefficient as a vertex and edge based on the graph theory. The helix deviation network image of a ground helical
gear, whose tooth number was 15, was shown in this paper. The created network image showed that the manufactured
gear had three classes related to the phase. Eight consecutive teeth constituted one of the three classes and five consecutive
teeth on the opposite side were belonging to the other class. The two classes had negative correlation, and the third class
existed between the first two classes. This means that the measured gear had a possibility of out-of-plane vibration. The
method we have developed will allow for the simple evaluation of gears.

Visualisierung von Phasendifferenzen zwischen Zahnhelixabweichungen mittels der Graphentheorie

Zusammenfassung
Ziel dieser Studie ist es, augenfreundliche Netzwerkbilder zu erstellen, die Herstellungsfehler von Zahnrädern darstellen, die
während des Betriebs Vibrationen und Geräusche verursachen. Insbesondere wird in dieser Arbeit eine Visualisierungsme-
thode für Phasendifferenzen zwischen Zahnspitzenabweichungen vorgeschlagen. Zunächst wurden die Zahnschraubenab-
weichungen eines Zahnrades gemessen. Dann wurden die Gleichstromkomponenten in den gemessenen Abweichungsdaten
eliminiert und ein Gauß-Filter mit einer geeigneten Wellenlänge verringerte die Rauheitskomponenten in den gemessenen
Abweichungsdaten zum Extrahieren von Formabweichungskomponenten. Darüber hinaus wurden Korrelationskoeffizien-
ten abgeleitet, indem das innere Produkt zwischen den Abweichungsdaten aller Zähne zur Erfassung der Phasendifferenzen
berechnet wurde. Dann wurde ein Netzwerkbild der Phasendifferenzen zwischen den Zahnhelixabweichungen erzeugt, in-
dem jeder Zahn und jeder Korrelationskoeffizient als Eckpunkt und Kante auf der Grundlage der Graphentheorie betrachtet
wurden. Das Helix-Abweichungs-Netzwerkbild eines geschliffenen Schrägzahnrads mit einer Zahnzahl von 15 wurde in
diesem Artikel gezeigt. Das erstellte Netzwerkbild zeigte, dass das hergestellte Zahnrad drei Klassen in Bezug auf die Phase
hatte. Acht aufeinanderfolgende Zähne bildeten eine der drei Klassen und fünf aufeinanderfolgende Zähne auf der gegen-
überliegenden Seite gehörten zur anderen Klasse. Die beiden Klassen hatten eine negative Korrelation und die dritte Klasse
bestand zwischen den ersten beiden Klassen. Dies bedeutet, dass das gemessene Zahnrad möglicherweise Vibrationen
außerhalb der Ebene aufwies. Die von uns entwickelte Methode ermöglicht die einfache Bewertung von Zahnrädern.

 D. Iba
iba@kit.ac.jp 2
Graduate School, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan
3
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyoto Institute of Osaka Seimitsu Kikai, Osaka, Japan
Technology, Goshokaido, Matsugasaki, Sakyo, Kyoto, Japan 4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyoto Institute of
Technology, Goshokaido, Matsugasaki, Sakyo, Kyoto, Japan

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1 Introduction
High-volume production of EV, HEV, PHV, and the like
in the developed countries increases the demand for low-
noise and high-efficiency transmission. It is well known that
properties of gear tooth flanks generally affect not only the
strength, but also efficiency and noise of the gears in trans-
missions [1, 2]. The high surface texture of tooth flanks can
realize the excellent properties of it, therefore, ground or su-
perfinishing processes are selected as the finishing process
of gears and gear inspection is carried out after processing.
However, the use of high accurate gears occasionally
cannot realize quiet transmissions. It means that the current
accuracy evaluation items might be not enough for esti-
mation of appearance of sound and vibration from trans-
missions. The ordinary gear inspection items include tooth
profile and helix deviations of each tooth [3, 4], but does
not include the relative evaluation values among the devia-
tions that could be related to potential problems which have
been overlooked.
For a better understanding of the manufactured gear’s
deviations, this research proposes a description method of
the relative relations of the deviations of gears using graph
theory. The graph theory is used for analyzing complex net-
work systems. Typical application examples of the graph
theory are system analysis of electricity transmission net-
works, railway networks and airline networks.
The long-term objective of this study is to create eye-
friendly graph (network) images representing manufactur-
ing error of gears. Especially, this paper shows the networks
of the helix deviations of ground helical gears. Calculation
of inner product between two helix deviation generates cor-
relation coefficients for acquisition of the phase difference
between the deviations in the direction of the helix. Then,
a network image of the gear is generated by regarding each
tooth and the correlation coefficient as a vertex and edge
based on the graph theory. Finally, the proposed method is
verified through measurement experiments.
Fig. 1 Measurement object installed in gear measuring machine
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Forsch Ingenieurwes (2019) 83:529–535
Table 1 Specifications of measured gear
Parameters Values
Module (mm) 3.2
Pres. angle (deg) 20
Number of teeth 15
Helix angle (deg) 31.0
Face width (mm) 42.5
Material SKS
2 Gear specifications and helix deviations
In this paper, the measurement object is a grinding finished
helical gear having 3.2-module, and the number of teeth is
15. Fig. 1 shows a photo image of the gear measurement.
A CNC automatic gear measuring machine (CLP-35 made
by OSAKA SEIMITSU KIKAI CO. LTD) was used for
measurement test in this inspection. The specifications of
the gear are shown in Table 1.
An example of the tooth helix deviation of the measure-
ment object is shown in Fig. 2. The red solid line in this
figure is the original measured helix deviation of 1st tooth.
The facewidth of the measured gear is 42.5 mm. However,
the data at the both ends have no meaning after conditioned
with a Gaussian filter, therefore, the central part of the mea-
sured data are only shown in Fig. 2. As can be seen, Fig. 2
shows that the red solid line includes both short and long
wavelength components. The short wavelength components
are related to the surface roughness [5]. The present paper,
however, is focusing on the phase shift between the helix
deviations, then the Gaussian filter is used for reducing the
effect of roughness on the tooth flanks [6]. In this paper,
the helix deviations were conditioned with the filter having
0.8 mm cut-off value [7]. In Fig. 2, the black solid line is the
Fig. 2 Example of measured and filtered helix deviation
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3 Correlation coefficients among helix

deviations

In this section, a calculation method, which provides rela-

tive relation among helix deviations, is explained.

3.1 Elimination of DC component

Firstly, the DC components of the helix deviations condi-

tioned with the Gaussian filter are eliminated, because the
DC components effect on the pitch deviations, but not on
the phase shift of the helix deviations.
If the conditioned tooth helix deviation curve is f b .x/,
and the average value of the curve is defined as fDC , then,
the DC free helix deviation curve f .x/ is defined as follows.

b .x/ − fDC
f .x/ = f (1)

3.2 Correlation coefficient

Vertices and edges are required for constructing networks.

Fig. 3 Tooth helix deviations (black solid lines) and mean helix lines
(red solid lines)
In the case of graphs, information about existence or non-
existence of connections between the vertices is necessary
for the edges. For network, intensity information between
the vertices is also required in addition to the information
about the edge existence. In this paper, correlation coef-
ficients between the helix deviations are defined, and the
teeth of gears and the defined coefficients are regarded as
the vertices and edges of the network image.
Firstly, the inner product between two helix deviations
is defined as follows.
Z L
˝ ˛ 1
fj .x/ ; fk .x/ = fj .x/ fk .x/ dx (2)
L 0

filtered helix deviation of 1st tooth. This figure clarifies that Where, fj means the helix deviation of j th tooth condi-
the surface roughness on the tooth flank, such as the short tioned with the Gaussian filter. j and k are positive integers
wavelength components, was diminished by the Gaussian changing from 1 to the number of teeth z, but k ¤ j. x is
filter. the parameter in direction of facewidth and L is the integral
Fig. 3 shows the charts of all helix deviations. In this range.
figure, the black solid lines are the helix deviations of all Next, norm of the helix deviation is defined as follows.
tooth flanks and the red solid lines are the mean helix lines s
Z L
of the deviations. As can be seen in Fig. 3, the mean helix   ˚ 2
fj .x/ = 1 fj .x/ dx (3)
lines give the tendency of the helix deviations of gear, to L 0
understand the relative relation among the helix deviation is
not easy from these charts. Therefore, this study proposes Using the above equations, the following correlation co-
a description method of the relative relations among the efficient for networks is defined.
helix deviations for a better understanding. ˝ ˛
fj .x/ ; fk .x/
rjk =   (4)
fj .x/ kfk .x/k

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Table 2 Adjacency matrix of helix deviation of ground gear

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1 0.000 0.413 0.128 0.129 0.187 0.101 0.159 0.330 0.554 0.739 0.523 0.478 0.465 0.374 0.483
2 0.413 0.000 0.838 0.784 0.835 0.860 0.858 0.858 0.905 0.672 –0.197 –0.449 –0.373 –0.314 –0.346
3 0.128 0.838 0.000 0.943 0.920 0.950 0.977 0.929 0.821 0.407 –0.393 –0.715 –0.691 –0.565 –0.534
4 0.129 0.784 0.943 0.000 0.970 0.960 0.975 0.963 0.834 0.272 –0.504 –0.729 –0.769 –0.706 –0.586
5 0.187 0.835 0.920 0.970 0.000 0.977 0.966 0.959 0.878 0.293 –0.541 –0.727 –0.741 –0.716 –0.640
6 0.101 0.860 0.950 0.960 0.977 0.000 0.977 0.937 0.852 0.318 –0.554 –0.777 –0.755 –0.698 –0.669
7 0.159 0.858 0.977 0.975 0.966 0.977 0.000 0.966 0.865 0.393 –0.436 –0.720 –0.711 –0.620 –0.571
8 0.330 0.858 0.929 0.963 0.959 0.937 0.966 0.000 0.924 0.451 –0.330 –0.580 –0.611 –0.557 –0.442
9 0.554 0.905 0.821 0.834 0.878 0.852 0.865 0.924 0.000 0.627 –0.154 –0.365 –0.361 –0.354 –0.293
10 0.739 0.672 0.407 0.272 0.293 0.318 0.393 0.451 0.627 0.000 0.502 0.232 0.332 0.407 0.346
11 0.523 –0.197 –0.393 –0.504 –0.541 –0.554 –0.436 –0.330 –0.154 0.502 0.000 0.862 0.850 0.923 0.911
12 0.478 –0.449 –0.715 –0.729 –0.727 –0.777 –0.720 –0.580 –0.365 0.232 0.862 0.000 0.945 0.878 0.915
13 0.465 –0.373 –0.691 –0.769 –0.741 –0.755 –0.711 –0.611 –0.361 0.332 0.850 0.945 0.000 0.936 0.865
14 0.374 –0.314 –0.565 –0.706 –0.716 –0.698 –0.620 –0.557 –0.354 0.407 0.923 0.878 0.936 0.000 0.879
15 0.483 –0.346 –0.534 –0.586 –0.640 –0.669 –0.571 –0.442 –0.293 0.346 0.911 0.915 0.865 0.879 0.000

Here, the value of the correlation coefficient ranges from
–1.0 to 1.0 and varies depending on the combination of
the helix deviations [8]. If a helix deviation is identical to
another helix deviation, the correlation coefficient becomes
1.0. If the two helix deviations have the antiphase relation,
the correlation coefficient becomes –1.0.
3.3 Adjacency matrix of helix deviation
Table 2 shows the derived correlation coefficients among
the helix deviations of the ground gear. The first row and
the first column express the number of gear teeth in this
table. The matrix from the 2nd row and 2nd column in this
table is called as “Adjacent matrix” in the graph theory.
Each component from the 2nd row and column is the cor-
relation coefficient among the helix deviations of the gear.
The diagonal elements are zero in the adjacency matrix. The
correlation coefficient between 6th and 7th teeth is 0.977
and the value is the maximum in this matrix. The correla-
tion coefficient between 6th and 12th teeth is –0.777 and
this value is the minimum in this matrix.
If two helix deviations were identical, the correlation
coefficient would be unit. When all components except the
diagonal become unit, this matrix is ideal. In this ideal
situation, the summation of the components in the rows or
columns is z-1. Where z is the number of teeth. In this study,
the sum of the optimal condition is 14. The summation
of the actual components in the rows or columns in the
adjacent matrix gives importance (similarity) level of the
tooth in the gear. The highest sum means that the tooth
resembles other teeth, and the lowest sum means that the
tooth does not resemble. Fig. 4 shows the results of the row
summation of the adjacency matrix of the ground gear. As
can be seen in Fig. 4, the best value of the sum is 10th tooth
and the worst value of the sum is 12th tooth.
As described above, calculating of correlation coeffi-
cients of helix deviations enable to obtain new findings.
3.4 Examples of strong positive and negative
correlation among helix deviations
In this subsection, two pairs of helix deviations, which have
the strongest positive and negative correlation coefficient,
are shown as examples. The maximum correlation coeffi-
cient is obtained between 6th and 7th teeth. The correlation
coefficient was 0.977. Next, the minimum correlation co-
efficient is obtained between 6th and 12th teeth. The value
was –0.777. These correlation means that the helix devia-
tion of 6th tooth is very similar to the helix deviation of
7th tooth, and the helix deviation of 6th tooth is not sim-
ilar to the helix deviation of 12th tooth. Fig. 5 shows the
helix deviations of 6th and 7th teeth and Fig. 6 shows the
helix deviations of 6th and 12th teeth. As can be seen, the
phase among the helix deviations of 6th and 7th are nearly
identical and the helix deviations of 6th and 12th has large
phase difference, such as antiphase relation.
As shown here, the phase relationship between the two
teeth in the helix direction can be expressed by the correla-
tion coefficient defined in the previous subsection. However,
understanding of the adjacency matrix of the correlation co-
efficients is not easy by inspection. Thus, network images
of the correlation coefficients of all teeth are generated in
the next section.

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Fig. 4 Summation of row of adjacent matrix Fig. 6 Helix deviations of 6th and 12th teeth (minimum correlation
coefficient: –0.777)

Fig. 7 Network image of helix deviations of ground helical gear

set V and the edge set E. Thus, graph G is expressed as

follows [9].

Fig. 5 Helix deviations of 6th and 7th teeth (maximum correlation G = .V; E/ (5)
coefficient: 0.977)
In this study, the vertex set V consists of the teeth of
gears and is expressed by the following equation.
4 Generation of network images
V = fv1 ,v2 ,    vz g (6)
4.1 Definition of network
Where, z is the number of teeth.
A diagram consisting of several points and lines connecting The edge connecting the mth and nth teeth is expressed
the points is called a graph [9]. The points in the graph are as fvm ; vn g. Thus, the edge set V is defined as follows
called vertices, and the lines are also called edges. If the
edges in the graph have weights to add various functions E = ffv1 ,v2 g ,fv1 ,v3 gg ,    fv1 ,vz g , fv2 ,v3 g ,
(7)
into the edges, such as time, distance, and so on, the graph    fv2 ,vz g ,    fvz–1 ,vz g
is called “network”. Graph G is determined from the vertex
Adding the correlation coefficients into the edge weights
can generate a network image.

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Fig. 8 Network images in accordance with strength of correlation coefficients. a –1 ~ 0; b 0 ~ 0.5; c 0.5 ~ 1
Fig. 9 Helix slope deviations on each flank
4.2 Visualization
In this study, the width of the edges varies depending on
the weights given to the edges. When the correlation coef-
ficient is –1, the line width is set to 5 pt. As the value of the
correlation coefficient increases, the line width decreases at
a constant interval. When the correlation coefficient is 1,
the line width is set to be 0 pt. The smaller correlation co-
efficients mean large phase difference between the vertices.
In other words, these teeth potentially have not similar he-
lix deviations and require special attention. This is why the
edges having smaller correlation coefficients are illustrated
as the wider lines in this paper.
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Forsch Ingenieurwes (2019) 83:529–535
Fig. 10 Helix slope deviations on each flank
4.3 Generation of network images and discussion
In this subsection, the helix deviation network image of
the measured gear is generated. Fig. 7 shows the generated
network of the ground helical gear.
All edges between the vertices are illustrated in this fig-
ure, but showing the strong and weak correlations in the
same figure does not allow us to understand the proper-
ties of helix deviations of the gear due to overlap of edges.
Therefore, three network images were created in accordance
with the strength of the correlation coefficients.
Fig. 8 shows the new created network images. Fig. 8a,
b and c shows the networks having coefficient ranges from
–1 to 0, from 0 to 0.5 and from 0.5 to 1, respectively.
As shown in Fig. 8c, the outer circumference of the net-
work is connected by thin lines except the edges between
1st and 2nd, 1st and 15th. This means that almost of all ad-
jacent tooth helix deviations of this ground gear are similar.
However, Fig. 8a and b shows that 1st and 10th teeth divide
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this gear into two groups Fig. 8b. related to decorrelation
index tells us that these two vertices are less similar to the
other vertices. As shown in Fig. 8b, it appears that the 1st
and 10th teeth constitute the third group and this group be-
comes the border of the above-mentioned two groups. In
addition, Fig. 8a shows the negative correlation between
the divided two groups.
As can be seen, network images are one of the eye-
friendly expression of the correlation. The method we have
developed will allow for a further deepening of the under-
standing of the nature of the relative relations of the helix
deviations between all tooth flanks.
5 Comparison with helix slope deviation
In the previous section, the displayed networks among the
helix deviations were grouped based on the phase attribute.
The upper group (from 2nd to 9th) and the lower group
(from 11th to 15th) had anti-phase relation. The correlation
coefficients were similar in each group. This attribute can
also be obtained through the helix slope deviations. In this
section, the helix slope deviations are derived from Fig. 3
and the difference between the correlation coefficients and
the helix slope deviations is discussed.
Firstly, the helix slope deviations were calculated and
the values of each tooth were projected around an isomet-
ric circle as shown in Fig. 9. This figure indicates that there
are positive (from 2nd to 10th) and negative (from 11th to
1st) slope groups in the slope deviations. However, the he-
lix slope deviations did not show how similar the vertices
were in each group. For example, the helix slope deviations
of the 8th and 9th tooth are –5.2 and –2.7, respectively.
The difference of the helix slope deviations between 8th
and 9th is not small. However, the correlation coefficient
between the helix deviations is 0.92. The number indicates
the strong positive correlation and a high level of similarity
between them. Fig. 10 shows the helix deviations and its
mean helix lines of the 8th and 9th teeth. The convex parts
of the both helix deviation curves are located at almost the
same position in this figure. This is why the correlation co-
efficient between them was high, although there was a gap
between the helix slope deviations between them. The pro-
posed phase network among the helix deviations is useful
for gaining a better and deeper understanding of gear devi-
ations.
535
6 Conclusions
A purpose of this study was to create eye-friendly network
images representing manufacturing error of gears. Espe-
cially, this paper proposed a visualization method of phase
differences between tooth helix deviations. Firstly, correla-
tion coefficients between the helix deviations were derived,
then, network images were generated using a graph theory.
The generated phase network images among helix devia-
tions of a ground gear showed that the helix deviations of
the gear were classified into three groups. Two of the three
had anti-phase relation and the helix deviations in each
group had high correlation. The remaining one existed at
the boundary between the two groups having anti-phase re-
lation. It is concluded that the created network image is
eye-friendly and easy to understand one of the properties
of gears.
Further studies are needed to express another deviation
of gears on the network images for a further deepening of
the understanding of nature of not only a single gear, but
also a meshing gear pair.
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