8/1/22, 9:16 PM How is ball screw life calculated? | Ball Screws | Technical Information | Kuroda Precision Industries Ltd.

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Technical
Information How is ball screw life calculated?
Ball Screws
The Life of a ball screw is defined in a unit as the total number of rotations reached before surface-flaking of the balls or
the ball groove starts to appear, due to repeated stress on their materials, and can be calculated with the Basic Dynamic
Ballscrew Actuators
Load Rating (C).

Gauges It is not advisable to use the Basic Dynamic Load rating as a basis for a life calculation where the application requires the
ball screw to operate at less than 10 rpm, due to large errors in predicted results. For this reason, use the Basic Static
Load Rating (C0) when calculating for low rotational speed applications. The Basic Static Load Rating is: an axially applied
static load that causes a permanent deformation on steel balls and screw groove as a sum, in the amount of 1/10,000th of
the ball diameter. The life of a ball screw can be calculated. Over-designing the life parameter will result in unnecessarily
high costs and excessive size of the mechanism. Therefore, it is important to properly size the ball screw based on its life
calculations. The following is the typically accepted guideline.

The following Surface-Flaking progression of ball screws beyond its life expectancy has been observed as the result of
Fatigue Life Tests.

Some round "pitting" 0.2mm in diameter appear on the surface of the ball nut groove initially, followed by appearance and
propagation of "cracks", and finally resulting in "flaking" of the entire surface of the ball screw shaft.

* The above pictures in reference to Dr. Izawa "Ball screw and its applied technology.

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