The effect of virtual process on reducing reverse engineering costs of CB-125R motorcycle gearbox gears

The accuracy of the initial design of the gears can significantly ensure the proper function of the gearbox as a part of the transmission systems. This paper discusses the economic impact of performing a virtual process, which includes computer-aided design and rapid prototyping, on reverse engineering of a Honda CB-125R motorcycle gearbox to modify existing traditional trends and examines the reduction of production costs. For this purpose, the gears were disassembled from the motorcycle gearbox and examined in terms of dimensions. Then, calculations were performed to find the modulus of each pair of gears involved. After extracting the dimensional characteristics of the gears, a computer model of each was drawn, and then physical samples of them were produced layer by layer by fused deposition modeling method. To ensure the dimensional accuracy of the gears for mass production, the produced samples were used to test with assembly in the gearbox. After the approval of the initial design, the mass production of gears with the determined parameters was performed by the hobbing machine. The results of monitoring the application of the virtual process in reverse engineering of the studied gears in the five months of mass production prove that the virtual process reduces the costs of the production errors, assembly defects, and waste parts to 100%, 55%, 71% respectively. Hence, the virtual process reduces the total mass production costs by 36%.