A new method to estimate effective elastic torsional compliance of single-stage Cycloidal drives

Abstract Standard single-stage tooth-to-pin-contact Cycloidal drives deliver various benefits such as high-ratio speed reduction, highly efficient torque delivery, compact physical structure etc. They lack torsional rigidity on their own because of inherent “lost-motion” and “backlash”, and hence inappropriate for precision-motion mechanical systems. However from dynamics point of view, this is beneficial for non-precision-motion systems, as it reduces the drive-train's shock factor. Currently there are no design standards for Cycloidal drives owing to their complicated component stiffness behaviour, increased tooth-load-sharing at overloads etc., which further obscures the analytical estimation of torsional rigidity of a given configuration. This paper presents a novel method comprising both analytical and numerical techniques for the effective determination of the elastic torsional compliance of single-stage Cycloidal drives based on static experimental results conducted on a commercially available gear-drive. We establish a unique key parameter −  ηOP, ‘torque transfer efficiency’, of output-shaft-pins from mechanism-kinematics to be included in the system's dynamic model. Applying the techniques and outcomes presented here in a lumped mass/inertia dynamic model yielded agreeable natural frequency of torsional oscillations in comparison to experimental results obtained under the same loading conditions. This can lead to dynamically optimised designs and hence their standardisation.