Error Analysis and Compensation for Meshing Contact of Toroidal Drives

Abstract

This paper investigates the meshing errors of the toroidal drive, reveals three typical latency errors and develops the error analysis in this typical type of gear drives. Having identified the latency errors, the error integrated coordinate transformation is implemented. This leads to the development of the error impinged meshing model. The model reveals for the first time the effect of the latency errors in gear meshing contact of a toroidal drive and characterizes the error effect on meshing contact. The effect of these errors on the gear coordinate frames is hence presented and on the contact paths of rollers is analyzed. The study leads to a new method for compensating the three latency errors by introducing a bearing with a changeable oil film. The method is then verified in a prototype and demonstrates to be effective.