Optimal design for an end face engagement worm gear with multiple worm-wheel meshing

To solve the problem for lacking a special mechanical transmission that could provide multiple outputs with high transmission efficiency and good lubrication in the modern industrial, a novel worm gear, named end face engagement worm gear, with multiple worm-wheel meshing is proposed for the first time. The essential parameters for the worm gear are optimized to enhance lubrication and meshing properties. Moreover, analysis of variance(ANOVA) is applied to determine the optimum levels and to determine the influence of parameters. The ANOVA results show that the novel end face engagement worm gear with multiple worm wheels provides high lubrication(the lubrication angle is more than 89°) and meshing performance(the induce normal curvature is less than 0.0002 mm−1). The interaction between center distance and roller slant distance most strongly influences the lubrication angle(contributed 51.6%), followed by the parameters of center distance(contributed 25.0%), roller slant distance(contributed 16.4%), tooth angle of gear, gear ratio, and roller radius. In addition, roller radius most strongly influences the induced normal curvature(contributed 39.4%), followed by roller slant distance(contributed 15.2%), tooth angle of the gear(contributed 9.0%), center distance, and gear ratio. The proposed worm gear helps to enrich the no-backlash high precision worm drive and the optimal design method can provide a useful reference on performance improvement of other worm gear.