Load sharing by tooth pairs in involute toothed harmonic drive with conventional wave generator cam

Abstract

A harmonic drive is a two gear epicyclic drive with a gear set of circular ring gear (RG), a flex rimmed external toothed gear (FG) and an oval cam. FG, with oval cam inside, takes non-circular gear shape encounters improper teeth mating with RG, having only two teeth difference. Consequently, interferences occur at several tooth pairs even at no load. These are inherent and obvious. Overcoming such interferences and further with applied load estimation of load sharing by tooth pairs poses a complex problem. In solving it, first, tooth stiffness of internal gear and external gear are derived in the present investigation. A method of estimating the load shared by the multiple tooth pairs in contact is proposed. The load distribution pattern in proportion to the tooth deformation is considered. Load shared by contacting tooth pairs is estimated and stresses in FG cup are found out using FEM. Finally, such results are compared with experimental results, which have good agreement.