On Developing an Electromechanical Drive Equipped with a Ball Screw Protected from Jamming

Abstract

At present, one of the most pressing issues is the problem of improving electromechanical drive reliability, specifically, eliminating the possibility of jamming in the ball screw. The paper proposes an engineering solution designed to replace expensive imported ball screws. We analysed alternative designs intended to improve electromechanical drive reliability. We proposed and patented a ball screw design featuring a separator, in which the nut acts as a piston. The structure consists of a smooth cylindrical body and a slotted separator, its slots positioned along a helical line with a step equal to the thread lead. The body and the separator are coaxial and rigidly fixed together at the separator end faces so that the rolling elements remain in contact with the screw thread surfaces, the internal smooth cylindrical surface of the nut body and the surfaces of the separator slots. The ball screw design proposed, which features a nut with no internal threading, significantly simplifies the structure and its manufacturing technology. We built a model of an electromechanical drive equipped with a recirculating ball screw in order to determine static and dynamic properties of an electromechanical drive containing a ball screw featuring a separator. We compared the strength of the ball screw designs considered. As the ball screw featuring a separator is simpler and more reliable, the results of our analysis and the properties of an electromechanical drive equipped with the design proposed show that it is a promising solution to the import substitution problem concerning recirculating ball screws