Using elastic joint to reduce the impact between ball and re-circulating mechanism in ball screw

A ball screw driven mechanism is a major component in high-speed/high-precision transmitting systems. In such a mechanism, the re-circulating mechanism has been designed to provide the path for steel balls rolling in screw grooves. As the driven shaft in the mechanism operates at high rotating speed, forces caused by the impact activity between the steel ball and re-circulating mechanism may induce violent vibration and strong noise and cause damage to the re-circulating mechanism after some significant service times. In order to reduce the impact, a method using elastic joint between re-circulating mechanism and nut is proposed and the influence of joint rigidity on impact force is discussed. From results obtained here, it is shown that the impact force formed at rigid joint is always higher than that formed at elastic joint, and the influence degree of joint rigidity on the impact force is affected by the mass radio of steel ball and re-circulating mechanism. The experimental results indicate that using elastic joint between re-circulating mechanism and nut can reduce the impact forces effectively.