Study on the Wear Performance of Spiroid Worm Drive with Steel–Steel Meshing

Worm drive belongs to the inclined plane transmission principle, and there is severe wear on the conjugate tooth surface. To reveal the wear mechanism and realize steel–steel meshing in the spiroid worm drive, the meshing performance model of conjugate tooth surface is established based on differential geometry theory and gear meshing principle, and the wear performance model is inferred by the Archard model and microscopic meshing performance. The wear performance of conjugate tooth surface is analyzed through the digital calculation, the pin-disk friction, and wear testing, as well as the spiroid worm drive prototype performance testing. The results show that there are good lubrication and anti-wear characteristics between the conjugate tooth surfaces, the wear amount on the right flank is twice that of the left flank, the wear depth at the loaded flank of the spiroid gear surface is smaller than that at the unloaded flank, as well as the feasibility of steel–steel meshing in worm drive has been confirmed.