Experimental investigation of churning power loss of single start worm gear drive through optimization technique

Abstract

Worm gears have very high total power losses due to high sliding motion and strong reduction ratio resulting in low efficiency. It is currently assumed that the total power loss (TPL) is caused by the load dependent losses; it is not caused by any non-load dependent losses. To verify this hypothesis, a specific gear test rig for worm gear pair was designed to measure the total power loss and churning power loss (CPL) simultaneously by using direct torque measurement technique. Many experiments were performed using different speed of worm gear, immersion depth of lubricant and temperature of lubricant inside the gear box. Taguchi L27 orthogonal array was used for designing the series of experiments. The empirical equation for churning power loss and total power loss with process parameters was modelled by using standard regression technique. The adequacy of the developed mathematical models was checked by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The problem was formulated as multi-objective optimization based on statistical analysis. It was found that the churning power loss (CPL), a kind of no-load dependent loss, has significant contribution in total power loss for splash lubrication. The immersion depth and temperature of lubricant are adequately influential parameters for churning power loss. The confirmation test result demonstrates that the optimization technique is one of the best available techniques to predict the optimal input variables for better output responses.