Development of Torsional Stiffness Measurement Equipment for Flex-spline of Strain Wave gear

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The harmonic drive(HD) is widely used in various automation systems such as semiconductor manufacturing systems, collaborative robots, etc. An operating principle of strain wave gear is that the flex-spline located between the wave generator and the circular spline is elastically deformed by a wave generator with an oval cam type. Due to the deformation of flex-spline, wave generator and flex-spline are rotated in opposite directions. This paper introduces experimental methods and equipment to measure the torsional stiffness of the flex-spline, a key component of the strain wave gear. First, experimental equipment consists of a high precision encoder located on both sides of the shaft to measure transmission error and torque sensor to measure loaded torque in real-time and brake to apply a torque on the flex-spline. Next, the jig for fixing the flex-spline has a specially designed structure to measure intrinsic torsion of the flex-spline by utilizing the assembly tolerance. Last, the torsional stiffness is measured by gradually increasing the amount of torque on the rotating shaft at a certain speed and calculating the amount of deformation from the deviation of minimum transmission error value every revolution.