WORM AND WORM WHEEL

A worm gear is a gear consisting of shaft and a spiral thread that engages with and drive a
toothed wheel. Worm gears are an old style of gear, and a version of one of the six simple
machines. Basically, a warm gear is a screw fixed up against a gear that looks like a standard
spur gear with slightly angled and curved teeth.

It changes the rotational movement by 90 degrees, and the plane of movement also changes due
to the position of worm on the warm wheel (or simply “THE WHEEL”). They are typically
comprised of a steel worm and a brass wheel. It has its drive axes at 90° to each other. With a
single start worm, for each 360° turn of the worm, the worm wheel advance only one tooth.

Advantages of WORM AND WORM WHEEL

1. Great speed reduction in minimal space, because of its low gear ratio.
2. Despite its smaller and compact built it has a load capacity.
3. Since it has less components, it offers a more precise linear motion.
4. Compared to other gears it produces less noise.
5. Less maintenances makes it more economical.
 6. It has unique non-reversible motion, making it the one of the limited options for some
particular cases.

Disadvantages of WORM AND WORM WHEEL

1. Low performance offered by this, which can be close to 15% due to high friction and
associated axial stresses.
2. It has high contact area so more friction and more wear.
3. Because of high wear, it has a low service life.

Types of WORM AND WORM WHEEL

1. Non-throat Worm Gears - Non-throat worm gears do not have a throat or groove
machined around the worm or worm wheel and are helical gears with a straight worm.
Tooth contact is at a single point on the moving drive and both gears are non-throated.
Having a single rotating point means the gear has high wear and tear. Non-throated worm
gears are designed to handle small loads and are easy to make.
2. Single throat Worm Gears - A single throated worm gear has incurvate helical teeth
designed around the worm for a contact line. This type of worm gear can withstand
higher power without additional wear. In this type of worm gear, only one set of threads
on the worm make contact with the worm wheel. Due to the fact that there is single
contact, which produces significant friction, the worm has to be much harder and stronger
than the wheel.

3. Double throat Worm Gears - The difference between single throat worm gears and
double throat types is their shape. Double throat worm gears are concave on the gear and
worm screw. The teeth of the gear and the shape of the worm threads are designed to
increase the contact between the wheel and worm. Double throat worm gears are able to
handle high loads. The design of the double throat provides the tightest connection
between the worm and the gear.
Why WORM AND WORM WHEEL?
Ans – Worm and worm wheel makes less noise, so places where the noise is a big issue, this gear
has the upper hand. Because of its unique design it can stop quickly, that brings more efficiency
in the whole system and also because of 90° angle between two axes it can transfer motions
perpendicular way. All worm gears are made of two different metals, with a harder metal used
for the worm and a softer one used for the wheel. This design enhances a worm gear’s ability to
absorb shock loads that are found in construction equipment and other applications that have
heavy loads. Motion is non-reversible so; it restricts opposite motion.
Literature review -
W. T. Moody et.al, have published various techniques of analysis of mechanical component in
Photoelastic and Experimental Analog Procedures Engineering Monograph No. 23. Along with
the theory of technique, they have explained all details including material requirement,
instrument used for analysis, calibration techniques, the polariscope, nature of light and plane
polarization, 3D photoelasticity, the photoelastic interferometer, the babinet compensator, the
beggsdeformeter, the electrical analogy tray, the membrane analogy, photoelastic materials and
model preparation, photoelastic model loading frame assembly.
Dr. V. B. Sondur et.al, have discussed about theoretical and finite element analysis of load
carrying capacity of asymmetric involute spur gears. In this paper, they have presented a method
for investigating the bending stress at the critical section of “Asymmetric Involute spur Gear”.
The gears with different pressure angle have been modeled by using CATIA software and
analysis was carried out. The results obtained by theoretical method have been verified by using
ANSYS. From their work they have proved that bending stress can be minimized up to 20% by
increasing pressure angle from 20° to 35°. Thus, from their work it is clear that FEA can be the
best technique for designing and analyzing mechanical component.