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# Involute of an angle

Involute of an angle calculator and finding an angle by the given involute.

There was a request to make a calculator for cylindrical gears - /970/.
Plunging into the theme of gears and their calculations, I've encountered involute and evolvent terms. I thought that's interesting and they deserve a separate calculators, see them below. First is for the involute and two others are for finding the angle by the given involute. For those who are interested - the text about the involute is following the calculators.

#### Involute of an angle

Digits after the decimal point: 6
Involute

#### Finding an angle by involute(Laskin's method)

Digits after the decimal point: 2
Angle (degrees)

#### Finding an angle by involute(Cheng's method)

Digits after the decimal point: 2
Angle (degrees)

So, in the differential geometry of curves evolvent is a curve, normal of which is tangent to the original curve at each point (see Эвольвента в Википедии).

Because it's hard to grasp everything above I'll retell you a figurative definition as it's described at the English version of the article (see. Involute on Wikipedia).

So, imagine a spool of thread, where the free end of the thread is lying on the spool. If you take this free end and start unwinding the thread while keeping it tight, the end of the thread will describe some curve that will be an evolvent of the circle (spool is an original curve that is a circle).

Following picture describes the evolvent of the circle
(Источник - Википедия). The red line is an original curve(circle), the black line is a stretched thread, the green line is a trajectory of an end of the thread - the curve that is called the evolvent of the circle.

Speaking of involute, the term involute is used interchangeably with the term evolvent in English sources. So it can refer to the curve itself and its function. In the Russian sources, the term evolvent is used for a curve and the term involute is for its function.

I think the term evolvent got much clearer for you after the picture above. Now, let's see what kind of function is this. The picture I've made will help:

The section at this picture $M_xN$ equals the arc $M_0N$ (because this is our "thread"). Angle "φ" equals to the arc $M_0N$ that is called evolvent angle of roll and consist of a sum of "θ" angle (evolvent angle)"α" angle (angle of pressure). The arcs lenght is $M_0N=r_0(\alpha_x+\theta_x)$

Because $M_xON$ is a right triangle that means $M_xN=r_0tg\alpha_x$

Equating these two arcs to each other, we will get$r_0(\alpha_x+\theta_x)=r_0tg\alpha$, whence $\theta_x=tg\alpha_x-\alpha_x$

This function $\theta_x=tg\alpha_x-\alpha_x$
is called involute or the evolvent of the function.
$inv(\alpha_x)=tg\alpha_x-\alpha_x$

The equations of involute curve in polar coordinates look like this
$\theta_x=inv(\alpha_x)$$r_x=\frac{r_0}{cos\alpha_x}$

By the construction we can see that "α" angle can vary from 0 to 90 but excluding 90 because in that case straight line KK will be parallel to MxN.

Why should we do all this? The evolvent of the circle is used in involute gearing - the gearing in which the profiles of the teeth are outlined the involute of the circle. During the involute gearing, total normal to the teeth in the contact profiles is always coincided with the common tangent to the base circle. This tangent is called the pressure line because the contact point of the teeth moves by that line during the wheel movement.
(картинка). This is the most common type of gearing.

And involute is used in calculations associated with involute gearing. Moreover, there are involute calculations and vice versa - finding an angle by its involute.And the second type of calculation is not that simple because the equation $I=tg(x)-x$ is a transcendental equation, and it can only be solved by numerical methods.

To sum up we will review the numerical methods used in the calculators above - Laskin and Cheng methods (for more information see this)

Based on Newton's method, which consists of an iterative calculation procedure
$x_{n+1}=x_{n}-\frac{f(x_n)}{f'(x_n)}$

The Know-How of this thing is in the choice of the initial values, which by the method of Laskin is calculated as

$x_1 = 1.441I^{\frac{1}{3}}-0.374I$, where I - initial value of the involute

To calculate the next approximation after the disclosure of derivative we'll obtain the expression
$x_{n+1}=x_{n}+\frac{I-inv(x_n)}{tan(x_n)^2}$

There are five iterations used in the calculator, but four should provide the accuracy to six decimal places. This method works for the values of involute from 0 to 1 i.e. you can find the angles from 0 to 64.87 degrees. In practice, that is enough. There are tables for finding the involute that are similar to the tables of trigonometric functions and they have a range of angle from 0 to 60.

Cheng's method
Based on the determination of an approximate value using the asymptotic curves. Cheng brought the following formula:
$x = (3I)^{\frac{1}{3}}-\frac{(2I)}{5} + (\frac{9}{175})(3)^{\frac{2}{3}}(I)^{\frac{5}{3}} - (\frac{2}{175})(3)^{\frac{1}{3}}(I)^{\frac{7}{3}} - (\frac{144}{67375})(I)^3 + (\frac{3258}{3128125}) (3)^{\frac{2}{3}}(I)^{\frac{11}{3}} - (\frac{49711}{153278125}) (3)^{\frac{1}{3}}(I)^{\frac{13}{3}}...$

This method can be used for finding the involute values that are strictly less than 1.8 i.e. it can find the angles up to 71.87. And you don't actually need those above - approaching the 90 the tangent tends to infinity, with all the ensuing consequences. Also, there are no tooth gearings with such large angles.

#### Similar calculators

PLANETCALC, Involute of an angle