Research on meshing performance of a novel internal revolution surface enveloping toroidal worm drive

This paper introduces a novel internal revolution surface enveloping toroidal worm drive (IRT worm drive), comprising a revolution surface gear and its corresponding enveloping toroidal worm. The meshing geometry model of the IRT worm drive is established. The induced normal curvature and sliding angle along contact lines are computed to evaluate meshing performance. Finite element analyses reveal that the IRT worm drive exhibits lower meshing stress than helical gear. The manufacturability of the revolution surface gear via injection molding is analyzed using the cavity inverse design and thermal shrinkage theory. An efficient internal whirling process is proposed for manufacturing the IRT worm. The revolution surface gear and the IRT worm were fabricated and subjected to contact pattern tests. Performance tests reveals that IRT drive achieves 86.4 % efficiency and 33.33 % higher load capacity than a helical gear pair. The proposed drive demonstrates excellent manufacturability for mass production with high drive performance.