Driving Performance and Strength of Pin-Rack Gear Mechanism Using a Trochoid Tooth Profile

Abstract

A pin-rack gear mechanism, which consists of a rack bar and a sprocket pinion, transforms a rotation motion into a liner one. The rack-bar has a series of pin train, and meshes with the sprocket pinion. In the previous study, we clarified the problem caused by using the sprocket pinion with an involute tooth profile. In this study, we adopted a trochoid tooth profile to the sprocket pinion of the pin-rack gear mechanism to obtain the higher strength. We measured the tooth root stress of the sprocket pinion with a trochoid tooth profile, the driving torque, and the horizontal force of the rack bar using a pin-rack gear mechanism testing machine. Additionally, we calculated the tooth root stress of sprocket pinion, the contact stress on the tooth surface, the flash temperature and the power loss. We considered on the driving performance and the strength of the pin-rack gear mechanism using a trochoid tooth profile by comparing the measured data with the calculated results.