FUNdaMENTALS of Design

Topic 6 Power Transmission Elements II

2008 Alexander Slocum

6-0

1/1/2008

Power Transmission Elements II

Screws & gears are transmission elements that warrant a special place in power transmission systems because of the huge range of power levels at which they are applied and the very high transmission ratios they can achieve. The first screws were used perhaps by Archimedes in 200 BC as pumps to lift water from a river to a field. It is not known when the first power screw for lifting a solid load was invented, but it was likely over a thousand years ago. Like many technologies, the military was a powerful catalyst for development. One could imagine designers wondering how they could convert rotary motion into linear motion, or how they could amplify force or torque. With gunpowder came the need for the manufacture of better gun barrels which propelled the fledgling machine tool industry. Fortunately, making cannons is like making cylinders for steam engines, and swords begot plowshares... The need to tell time accurately for navigation, the longitude problem1, was perhaps the major driving force in the development of accurate gears. The methods developed for creating accurate gears for clocks
1. See Dava Sobels book Longitude, ISBN 0802713122

were scaled to create accurate gears for industry and this also helped power the industrial revolution. We may never know who the great minds were who actually had the moment of brilliance to invent screws and gears, but we salute these great minds; for without screws and gears, which still serve us today, society would grind to a halt, and industry would be threaded! By considering FUNdaMENTAL principles, you will better be able to separate marketing hype from engineering reality. Remember Maudslays Maxims, and apply them in the context of: Kinematics: motion, accuracy, space Dynamics: forces, speeds, life Economics: design, build, maintain

Topic 6 Power Transmission Elements II

Topics: Screws! Gears!

www.omax.com

2008 Alexander Slocum

6-1

1/1/2008

Screws!
If we consider the double helix structure of DNA, perhaps it makes sense that past, present, and future of the human race also depends on leadscrews to move us forward to our destiny!1 Replisomes move along the DNA double helix, dividing it into two strands, and then appropriate matching nucleootides are added to yield two new strands of DNA. What mechanical actions compliment chemical actions, and who will develop the instruments and experiments that will unravel the mysteries of the mechanism of life? Perhaps a mechanical engineer with insight into macro scale mechanisms will play an important role! To look to the future, consider clues from the past. Was Archimedes the inventor of the first screw, and was there an observation that led to its discovery, or was it playing with things that randomly led to the invention? Is there a deep galactic memory imbedded in DNA that enabled it in its quest for never ending replication on all scales to fire neurons in Archimedes head to enable him to suddenly imagine the idea of a screw? Is it a coincidence that leadscrew nuts move along leadscrews as they rotate to move a machine tools axes which are used to make parts for other machines? Throughout history, humans have observed nature and used their observations as catalysts for creativity. So it is with screws, for when used in designs created using the fundemental principles presented in Chapter 3, leadscrews have been at the heart of nearly every type of machine used to make nearly every type of part. A screw is essentially a rotary wedge: it converts rotary motion into linear motion by the action of the inclined plane of one thread on another. If you walk up a spiral staircase, the spiral staircase remains fixed, but you rise up and turn as you walk up the staircase. The thread on a nut and a screw shaft are also helixes. Iff a screw shaft were fixed, and a nut on it were made to turn, it would move along the screw as the nuts inclined thread planes slide along those of the screw shaft. By reciprocity, if the nut were prevented from turning or translating and the screw shaft was made to turn, the screw would translate. If the nut were prevented from rotating but allowed to translate, and the screw shaft were made to turn, but not translate, rotary motion of the screwshaft
1. See for example D. DeRosier, The Turn of the Screw: The Bacterial Flagellar Motor, Cell, Vol. 93, 17-20, April 1998 (http://www.cell.com/cgi/content/full/93/1/17/); and J. Stanley and C. Guthrie, Mechanical Devices of the Spliceosome: Motors, Clocks, Springs, and Things, Cell, Vol. 92, 315-326, Feb. 1998 (http://www.cell.com/cgi/content/full/92/3/315/

would be converted into linear motion of the nut. In each of these cases, what is fixed and what is moving is relative in terms of which element is attached to a component that is to be moved in order to do useful work. There are two principal types of screws: sliding contact screws and rolling contact screws. The former are the simplest to make, and they have sliding contact between the thread of the screwshaft and the nut,. These are typically called powerscrews or sometimes just leadscrews; however, simplicity comes at the expense of efficiency. Friction can decrease the efficiency of a sliding contact thread leadscrew to 30% or less. As is generally the case in life, trade-offs abound, and leadscrews can handle large loads and suffer tremendous abuse. This low efficiency also means that once a bolt is tightened, it generally will not unwind. Once again, reciprocity shows us that a problem can be an opportunity. Rolling contact between the threads of the nut and screw can be obtained using recirculating ball bearings, and can enable ballscrews to have 90+% efficiencies. However, their rolling elements can be quickly destroyed by contamination and shock loads. In addition, ballscrews require much more careful machining than do simple leadscrews, and hence they are primarily used where high efficiency and precision are required. It is easier to create high speed low torque rotary motion from an electric motor, than high torque (or force) ow speed motion. Furthermore, since linear motion is so often required in machines, leadscrews are fundamentally fantastic machine elements. They are the truest of transmissions, and in order to maximize your creativity in using them, it is vital to understand the phine points of their fizziks of operation. Reciprocity Rules! Moreover, seemingly mundane manufacturing issues can cause mechanistic mayhem if overlooked, so once again, attention to detail is a must. Want some apple pie? Use a screw-based apple peeler! Feeling mellow when you are of age, use a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine! What types of linear motion do you require in your machine, and where might a screw be used? Can linear motion be turned into rotary motion, such as by using a screw to move the boom of a crane? When is it easier to turn the nut instead of the screw shaft?

Screws!
The screw thread is one of the most important inventions ever made HUGE forces can be created by screw threads, so they need to be carefully engineered:
Leadscrews Physics of operation Stresses Buckling and shaft whip Mounting The speed is often slow Always check to make sure you get what you want If you try sometime, you just might get what you need

When HUGE forces are created by screws

Mike Schmidt-Lange designed this auger-wheeled vehicle for the sands of 1995s 2.007 contest Pebble Beach, and years later, a major government lab invented the idea as a Mars rover sand-propulsion device

Someday, apples will be so plentiful, people will need machines to peel them!

2008 Alexander Slocum

6-2

1/1/2008

Screws: Leadscrews & Ballscrews

Leadscrews and ballscrews are the two very commonly used transmission elements in machines. They used to transform rotary motion from an electric motor into linear motion of a carriage. In fact, the kinematics of leadscrews motion are quite simple: they are a helical version of a wedge. Holding a nut so it cannot rotate but allowing it to translate, and conversely rotating a screwshaft while preventing it from translating, causes a nuts thread to slide along the thread of the screwshaft. The kinematics of a ballscrew are similar, except that instead of sliding contact between the threads, rolling elements, balls, are used. However, since the balls only travel half the distance of the threads (try rolling a pen between your hands) a mechanism is needed to collect the balls as the threads roll past them. This mechanism, called a pickup or ball deflector, diverts the balls into a return tube that carries them back to the beginning of the nuts thread. A leadscrew or ballscrews accuracy can be very great, because multiple thread turns can be simultaneously engaged which can help to average out errors. However, when the threads are first cut, errors in their shape can affect the accuracy of motion. Lead error and thread drunkenness are the two most common errors. Lead error occurs when the axial distance travelled per rotation of the shaft is not constant. This creates an imperfect overall transmission ratio. Thread drunkenness occurs when the thread does not make a perfect helix. in addition, errors in the profile of the thread also occur, which cause the nut to wobble and also affects the lead accuracy. Thus these errors require that some clearance exist between the threads of the screwshaft and the nut, or else the threads may bind and jamb. Unfortunately, the requirement for clearance between the threads creates a condition known as backlash. When rotating the screwshaft in one direction, the nut moves forward; however when the screwshaft rotation is reversed, unless there is a load on the nut, for a small rotation angle there will be no motion of the nut. For precision applications where backlash is a concern, multiple nuts or nuts that are slit can be preloaded with spring elements to reduce backlash and provide the local compliance needed. A leadscrew and nut can fit into a small space. The nut thread can be tapped into a structure itself to further reduce mounting space requirements; however this would eliminate the chance to replace the nut once the thread wears. A ballscrew nut is typically larger in diameter than a leadscrew nut because more space is required for the balls and the return tubes, but it is still

small enough overall to generally not be a problem. The key mounting issue is typically where to locate the nut axially along a carriage being moved, for as the figure reminds us, placing the nut at the center of stiffness (see page 3-26) reduces pitch moments imposed on the carriage by a non-straight screwshaft. The dynamics of leadscrews and ballscrews and their load & life calculations are to the first order very simple, but as with many designs, the devil is in the details, and thus will be discussed in depth on following pages. Suffice to say here that in general, there are such a wide variety of components available that one rarely has to resort to a custom manufactured design. Leadscrews, because of their inherent simplicity, are very simple to design and manufacture. It is their very simplicity that led to their being so widely used at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Even today they are the actuator of choice for many low cost machine tools. In addition, they are also easy to maintain. A simple seal and periodic lubrication are all that is required to keep them running, due to the fact that a nuts sliding contact threads themselves act like scrapers to clear the threads before they are engage. Because leadscrews are so simple to design and manufacture, they can easily be created by students in a robot design contest for their machines! Ballscrews, on the other hand, require extra care in the design of the thread profile, and the design of the ends of the nuts threads where the balls enter and leave the thread circuit. If the entrance and exit paths, as well as the ball return mechanisms, are not properly designed and manufactured, then the balls can bunch up and interfere with each others rolling. Hence ballscrews should only be designed and manufactured by companies with either the appropriate experience, or the desire to invest significant amounts of money. Look at the machine tools in the shop you are using to build your robot and see where and how they use leadscrews. Where do you need linear motion in your machine, and could a leadscrew be used? Should your leadscrew be directly driven by a motor or should a belt connect the motor shaft to the leadscrew shaft? If you are using the leadscrew to actuate a linkage, how might you mount the screwshaft and nut so that they are mounted to components that pivot? What sort of life are you expecting? Would you be better off with a gear transmission?

Screws: Leadscrews & Ballscrews

Leadscrews are essentially accurate screws used to move a nut attached to a load, and they have been used for centuries to convert rotary motion into linear motion
Leadscrews are commonly used on rugged economy machine tools Efficiency in a leadscrew system may be 30-50%, Sliding contact between the screw and nut is replaced by recirculating ball bearings and may have 95% efficiency Point contact between the balls and the threads makes them more delicate

Precision machine or those concerned with high efficiency often uses a ballscrew

http://www.thomsonindustries.com/industrl/ti090600.htm

2008 Alexander Slocum

6-3

1/1/2008

A leadscrew integrated with a round shaft slotted linear bearing to create a linear actuator. Note with an anti-rotation segment between the nut and the slot. See http://www.kerkmotion.com/

Screws: Forces
Leadscrews and ballscrews both rely on what is essentially the action of a helical wedge to cause the nut to translate with respect to the screwshaft as the two rotate with respect to each other. Note that it is the relative motion that is important. It does not matter which element is fixed or allowed to move, just as long as one rotation and one translation are constrained. The kinematics are simple: The product of the rotation (radians) of either the screw or the nut (one rotates, the other not) and the thread lead (distance/revolution) results in the translation of the other element. Similarly, the product of the angular speed (radians/second) and lead equals the translation speed (distance/s):

In fact, as the equation with the figure of the differential screw element shows, the torque required to create a force must not only overcome the friction in the screw threads, it must also overcome the friction in the bearings that are used to support the rotating element (e.g., the screw shaft). In a bolt, this is the friction torque between the bolt head and the structure. As the spreadsheet shows, this contributes to the low efficiency often experienced by sliding contact thread screw systems. Note from the equations how the efficiency decreases with diameter and what other parameters? Play with the spreadsheet Leadscrew_design.xls and see what forces you could generate using elements in your robot kit of parts. The life of a leadscrew depends on axial forces it generates, and unintended radial forces on the screw created by misalignment. In Chapter 9, sliding contact bearings are discussed in detail, including wear rates. For a leadscrew, the axial force generated can be predicted using the given equations, but what about misalignment forces? The answer is actually very straightforward. It is simple to determine the radial force required to deflect the screwshaft by the amount it is misaligned. Similarly, one can determine the moment caused by imposing an angular deflection along the shaft, and an equivalent radial force couple is just the moment divided by the length of the nut. Divide the net equivalent radial misalignment force by the sine of the thread angle, typically 30 degrees, and you have an equivalent force of misalignment to be added to the generated axial force. A ballscrew suffers from the same type of overloading, but the thread angle is greater, typically 45 degrees. The life of a rolling element bearing is also discussed in Chapter 10, which also takes into account preload forces. Use the design equations and/or spreadsheet to predict the forces that you can generate for your machine. What assumptions must be made? If you do not know the coefficient of friction, how might you determine it? Can you put one material on the other and then tilt them and note the angle at which they slide ( = tan)? Do you have enough motor torque and speed? Can you determine early on if you have enough power to accomplish the desired task without even considering the leadscrew? Does the product of maximum motor power (0.25maxmax) and expected leadscrew efficiency of 30% provide a good enough estimate? In Chapter 7, electric motors are discussed including models to enable you to predict the time versus speed for a system.

x = / 2 v = / 2
The fundemental principle of conservation of energy means that the input work from the motor, (the product of efficiency, torque (N-m) and angular motion (radians)) must equal the product of nut translation, and nut force; thus the output force can be found:

F=

2