A worm drive is a gear arrangement in which a worm (which is a gear in the form of a screw) meshes with a worm gear (which is similar in appearance to a spur gear, and is also called a worm wheel). The terminology is often confused by imprecise use of the term worm gear to refer to the worm, the worm gear, or the worm drive as a unit.
Like other gear arrangements, a worm drive can reduce rotational speed or allow higher torque to be transmitted. The image shows a section of a gear box with a worm gear being driven by a worm. A worm is an example of a screw, one of the six simple machines.
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A gearbox designed using a worm and worm-wheel will be considerably smaller than one made from plain spur gears and has its drive axes at 90° to each other. With a single start worm, for each 360° turn of the worm, the worm-gear advances only one tooth of the gear. Therefore, regardless of the worm's size (sensible engineering limits notwithstanding), the gear ratio is the "size of the worm gear - to - 1". Given a single start worm, a 20 tooth worm gear will reduce the speed by the ratio of 20:1. With spur gears, a gear of 12 teeth (the smallest size permissible, if designed to good engineering practices) would have to be matched with a 240 tooth gear to achieve the same ratio of 20:1. Therefore, if the diametrical pitch (DP) of each gear was the same, then, in terms of the physical size of the 240 tooth gear to that of the 20 tooth gear, the worm arrangement is considerably smaller in volume.
There are three different types of gears that can be used in a worm drive.
The first are non-throated worm gears. These don't have a throat, or groove, machined around the circumference of either the worm or worm wheel. The second are single-throated worm gears, in which the worm wheel is throated. The final type are double-throated worm gears, which have both gears throated. This type of gearing can support the highest loading.[1]
An enveloping (hourglass) worm has one or more teeth and increases in diameter from its middle portion toward both ends.[2]
Double-enveloping wormgearing comprises enveloping worms mated with fully enveloping wormgears. It is also known as globoidal wormgearing.[3]
Unlike with ordinary gear trains, the direction of transmission (input shaft vs output shaft) is not reversible when using large reduction ratios, due to the greater friction involved between the worm and worm-wheel, when usually a single start (one spiral) worm is used. This can be an advantage when it is desired to eliminate any possibility of the output driving the input. If a multistart worm (multiple spirals) is used then the ratio reduces accordingly and the braking effect of a worm and worm-gear may need to be discounted as the gear may be able to drive the worm.
Worm gear configurations in which the gear can not drive the worm are said to be self-locking. Whether a worm and gear will be self-locking depends on the lead angle, the pressure angle, and the coefficient of friction; however, it is approximately correct to say that a worm and gear will be self-locking if the tangent of the lead angle is less than the coefficient of friction.
In early 20th century automobiles prior to the introduction of power steering, the effect of a flat or blowout on one of the front wheels will tend to pull the steering mechanism toward the side with the flat tire. The employment of a worm screw reduced this effect. Further development of the worm drive employs recirculating ball bearings to reduce frictional forces, allowing some of the steering force to be felt in the wheel as an aid to vehicle control and greatly reducing wear, which leads to difficulties in steering precisely.
Worm drives are a compact means of substantially decreasing speed and increasing torque. Small electric motors are generally high-speed and low-torque; the addition of a worm drive increases the range of applications that it may be suitable for, especially when the worm drive's compactness is considered.
Worm drives are used in presses, in rolling mills, in conveying engineering, in mining industry machines, and on rudders. In addition, milling heads and rotary tables are positioned using high-precision duplex worm drives with adjustable backlash. Worm gears are used on many lift- (in US English known as elevator) and escalator-drive applications due to their compact size and the non-reversibility of the gear.
In the era of sailing ships, the introduction of a worm drive to control the rudder was a significant advance. Prior to its introduction, a rope drum drive was used to control the rudder, and rough seas could cause substantial force to be applied to the rudder, often requiring several men to steer the vessel, with some drives having two large-diameter wheels to allow up to four crewmen to operate the rudder.
Worm drives have been used in a few automotive rear-axle final drives (although not the differential itself at this time). They took advantage of the location of the gear being at either the very top or very bottom of the differential crown wheel. In the 1910s they were common on trucks; to gain the most clearance on muddy roads the worm gear was placed on top. In the 1920s the Stutz firm used them on its cars; to have a lower floor than its competitors, the gear was located on the bottom. An example from around 1960 was the Peugeot 404. The worm gear carries the differential gearing, which protects the vehicle against rollback. This ability has largely fallen from favour due to the higher-than-necessary reduction ratios.
A more recent exception to this is the Torsen differential, which uses worms and planetary worm gears in place of the bevel gearing of conventional open differentials. Torsen differentials are most prominently featured in the HMMWV and some commercial Hummer vehicles, and as a center differential in some all wheel drive systems, such as Audi's quattro. Very heavy trucks, such as those used to carry aggregates, often use a worm gear differential for strength. The worm drive is not as efficient as a hypoid gear, and such trucks invariably have a very large differential housing, with a correspondingly large volume of gear oil, to absorb and dissipate the heat created.
Worm drives are used as the tuning mechanism for many musical instruments, including guitars, double-basses, mandolins and bouzoukis, although not banjos, which use planetary gears or friction pegs. A worm drive tuning device is called a machine head.
Plastic worm drives are often used on small battery-operated electric motors, to provide an output with a lower angular velocity (fewer revolutions per minute) than that of the motor, which operates best at a fairly high speed. This motor-worm-gear drive system is often used in toys and other small electrical devices.
A worm drive is used on jubilee-type hose clamps or jubilee clamps; the tightening screw has a worm thread which engages with the slots on the clamp band.
Occasionally a worm gear is designed to be run in reverse, resulting in the output shaft turning much faster than the input. Examples of this may be seen in some hand-cranked centrifuges or the wind governor in a musical box.
A right hand helical gear or right hand worm is one in which the teeth twist clockwise as they recede from an observer looking along the axis. The designations, right hand and left hand, are the same as in the long established practice for screw threads, both external and internal. Two external helical gears operating on parallel axes must be of opposite hand. An internal helical gear and its pinion must be of the same hand.
A left hand helical gear or left hand worm is one in which the teeth twist counterclockwise as they recede from an observer looking along the axis.[4]
Worm wheels are first gashed to rough out the teeth and then hobbed to the final dimensions.[5]
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