Abstract
A cycloid reducer is one of the rotational velocity reduction equipments of machinery. It has advantages of the higher reduction ratio, the higher accuracy, the easier adjustment of transmission ratio and the smaller workspace than other kinds of reducer. A cycloidal plate gear is a main part of the cycloid reducer. Its tooth shape is peculiar because of gearing with the roller gear that has the several rollers on the circular line. And then it can be designed to contact all teeth to rollers. So, the cycloid reducer has the good characteristics in the dynamic properties and the zero-backlash in the contact motion. It can be used in robots, high-precision machines and high capacity machinery. This paper proposes a new approach for the shape design of the cycloidal plate gear and presents a Computer-Aided-Design program developed by the proposed method. The first part of this paper defines the two types of the cycloid reducers and explains their mechanisms. The second part defines the instant velocity centers for each type of the cycloid reducers and calculates the contact angles and the contact points by using te geometric relationships and the kinematical properties of the reducers. The third part generates the full shape of the cycloidal plate gear by the coordinate transformation technique. Finally, this paper presents two examples for the shape design of the cycloidal plate gear in order to prove the theory of the proposed method in this paper and the accuracy of the \"CycloGear Designer\".
