Abstract
The toroidal involute worm (TI worm) drive is composed of an involute gear and an hourglass worm generated by the involute gear surface, and it is of great advantages for power transmission. Because of the difficulty of grinding TI worm tooth surface, the TI worm drive has rarely been used. To solve this problem, an accurately turning method through the hourglass helix for the TI worm tooth surface is proposed. For this accurately turning method, mathematical models are developed, basic equations are derived and turning accuracy is analyzed. A nylon TI worm is turned and the red test of TI worm drive is checked. It is made clear that the proposed accurately turning method is correct and practicable. The study is expected to provide the theoretical and experimental foundation for the future explore the accurately hard turning of TI worm tooth surface.
