Meshing performance and error sensitivity of mismatched TI worm drive

Abstract

Due to the characteristic of multi-tooth line contact, toroidal involute (TI) worm drive is characterized by high-loading capacity but sensitive to the assembly errors. This paper proposed a mismatched TI worm drive based on the media gear to reduce the assembly error sensitivity. According to spatial meshing theory, the design method and mathematical model are established. The geometric properties of TI worm flank can be fine-tuned and change the contact characteristics of the worm pair by adjusting the tooth number of media gear. The spatial point-contact analysis method is presented, and the effects of some design parameters on meshing performance are studied. The tooth contact analysis (TCA) is simulated to verify the carrying capacity and error adaptability. These results suggest that the mismatched TI worm pair remains the characteristics of multi-tooth contact and large carrying capacity. Compared with the standard TI worm drive, it has better error adaptability.