Use of Reverse Engineering and Additive Printing in the Reconstruction of Gears

Despite the very rapid technological development, the general concept of mechanical devices has not changed. Still, the most common element of these devices are gears, whose range of use is very wide. There are both technological and historical considerations for the reconstruction of gears and other elements. In particular, this applies to spare parts for technical facilities that are not available on the market or service costs are too high. Contemporary reconstruction is called Reverse Engineering, which offers tools that allow transformation of an existing object through a virtual model into the final real product. Modern production engineering is based on innovative CAD – Computer Aided Designed design methods and computer-aided manufacturing technologies, CAM – Computer Aided Manufacturing. The rapid development of 3D CAD systems has led to the development of solutions to obtain the designed object, already at the development stage. Such a solution is the Rapid Prototyping method, designed for fast, precise and repeatable production of machine components. Widespread use and growing interest in the use of additive printing influenced the development of this technology. The purpose of the article is to present the practical application of the Reverse Engineering method and 3D printing in the reconstruction of gears. The object of research is the real gear, which has been reconstructed using Reverse Engineering and 3D printing. The article presents the basic assumptions of the methods used and the methodology for conducting reconstruction work. FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) technology was used for the research. The results obtained are a real example of the practical application of the presented methods. At the same time, they create great opportunities for their wider use.