EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF THE RIGIDITY OF BACKLASH-FREE PLANETARY ROLLER SCREWS FOR SPACE INDUSTRY PRODUCTS

In mechanical engineering, linear drives are widely used in various products. Linear drives in space technology are subject to high demands in terms of load capacity, which guarantees low mass, accuracy depending on rigidity, and other parameters. Axial play is often not allowed in these drives. Hence, backlash-free planetary roller screw drives (PRS) can meet these requirements. At the same time, the widely used wellknown backlash-free PRSs have half the load capacity than similar PRSs with axial clearances (backlash). In known backlash-free PRSs, the selection of gaps is carried out by bringing together two half-nuts with an equal length of the threaded section, between which a compensator is installed. To overcome this drawback, non-reversible backlash-free PRSs were developed for drives that transmit the load in one direction. Compared to the known backlash-free PRS gears, the developed gears provide 1.5 times greater load capacity due to the fact that in their design one half-nut (support) has a threade section three times longer than the threaded section of the other half-nut (supporting, auxiliary). The purpose of the work was to compare the developed transmission with a known one in terms of rigidity, for which prototypes of these backlash-free PRSs were developed and manufactured, a testing installation equipped with measuring instruments was designed and manufactured, and an experimental methodology was compiled. Experimental studies have shown that the rigidity of the developed non-reversible backlash-free PRS is 1.3 times higher than the rigidity of the known backlash-free PRS, which means that the accuracy of operation under load of the developed transmission is higher than the accuracy of the known transmission.