cycloid drive, external cycloid-arc gear, meshing characteristic, contact lines, induced normal curvature, Engineering machinery, tools, and implements, TA213-215, Mechanical engineering and machinery, TJ1-1570

Cycloid drive is used widely in many industrial areas for both power transmission and precision transmission. In this paper a novel cycloid drive is proposed and its meshing characteristics are analyzed. The conjugated gear pair of this novel cycloid drive is composed by an external cycloid-arc gear and an internal ring gear. Firstly, the idea of this novel cycloid drive is described and the tooth profile equation of the external cycloid-arc gear is presented. Secondly, based on coordinate transformation and gear geometry theory, the meshing equation for this novel cycloid drive is established, the equation of the conjugated tooth profile and the formula of induced normal curvature are also derived. Thirdly, the meshing characteristics are analyzed based on a numerical example: the drawing of the conjugated tooth pair is presented and compared with the conventional cycloid drive and the double-enveloping cycloid drive; the contact lines between one tooth pair at different meshing positions are illustrated. Finally, the induced normal curvature is calculated and compared with that of the conventional cycloid drive and the double-enveloping cycloid drive, which shows good characteristic of this novel cycloid drive.