The Design, Generation, and Simulation of Meshing of Worm-Gear Drive With Longitudinally Localized Contacts

Abstract

The design and simulation of meshing of a single enveloping worm-gear drive with a localized bearing contact is considered. The bearing contact has a longitudinal direction and two branches of contact path. The purpose of localization is to reduce the sensitivity of the worm-gear drive to misalignment. The author’s approach for localization of bearing contact is based on the proper mismatch of the surfaces of the hob and drive worm. The developed computer program allows the investigation of the influence of misalignment on the shift of the bearing contact and the determination of the transmission errors and the contact ratio. The developed approach has been applied for K type of single-enveloping worm-gear drives and the developed theory is illustrated with a numerical example. [S1050-0472(00)00502-X]