• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.325-331
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• 2018

Automobiles and systems requiring high gear ratios and high power densities generally use worm gears. In particular, as worm gears have a small volume and self-locking function, home appliances such as refrigerators and washers consist of worm gears. We can classify worm gears into cylindrical worms and rectangular worms. According to the AGMA standard, there are four types of cylindrical worms, ZA, ZN, ZK and ZI, depending on the machining of the worm shaft. It is preferable to use a ZI-type worm shaft, which is a combination of a worm wheel having an involute helical tooth surface and a conjugate tooth surface. However, in many cases, industries mostly use ZK, ZN, and ZA worm shafts because of the ease of processing. This paper presents numerical approaches to produce ZI and ZA worm surfaces and worm wheel. For the analysis of the transmission error of a worm gear system, this study (1) generates surface profile functions of ZI profile worm gear and worm shaft based on the common rack theory, (2) adopts the Newton-Raphson method for the analysis of the gear surface contact condition, and (3) presents and compares the corresponding transmission errors of ZI and ZA worm gears.