Meshing theory of mismatched ZC1 worm drive

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to investigate the meshing theory for the mismatched ZC1 worm drive. The contact endpoints, the datum point, and the internal instantaneous contact points are all determined by solving their corresponding nonlinear equation sets iteratively. The numerical results of the relative principal curvature, the transmission error, and the drive ratio error of the worm drive are all obtained. Only using the transmission error to evaluate the motion stability of a mismatched worm drive is insufficient, and it is necessary to take the drive ratio error into account. In addition, the motion stability of the worm drive is also related to the contact condition of its tooth surfaces, i.e. the trend of the contact path. The influence of the technological parameters on the meshing property of the worm drive is discussed systematically, and the obtained results indicate the effects are different. The numerical cases show that the mismatched ZC1 worm drive not only has the excellent meshing property but also is insensitive to the assembly errors on the whole.