Power Screw Threads

Square thread

Acme thread

Lead screws of lathes and other machine tools, automotive jacks,

vises, linear actuators, adjustable floor posts and micrometers etc

ButtressThreads

Multi-start

Screw Jack

Lead Screw

DVD drive

Lathe

Ball Screw

The Mechanics of Power Screws

Square-threaded power screw
single thread
Mean diameter dm
pitch p
lead angle
helix angle
loaded by the axial compressive force F

Helix angle: Angle that thread makes with plane perpendicular to thread axis
Lead angle : Angle between the helix and a plane of rotation

FBD of one thread, (a) raising and (b) lowering

A single thread of the screw is unrolled or developed for exactly a single turn. Then one edge
of the thread will form the hypotenuse of a right triangle whose base is the circumference of
the mean-thread-diameter circle and whose height is the lead

tan=(l / dm)

Raising load:

Lowering Load:

F P N sin fN cos 0 F
FV F fN sin N cos 0 F
H

PL N sin fN cos 0

F fN sin N cos 0

Torque, (a) raising and (b) lowering

Raising:

F sin f cos
PR
cos f sin

Lowering:
PL

Fd m
TR
2

F f cos sin
cos f sin

Fd m
TL
2

f
F l

d
m

PR

1 f .l

d
m

l fd m

d m fl

F f l

d
m

PL

1 f .l

d
m

fd m l

d m fl

Self locking of power screws

TL

Fd m
2

fd m l

d m fl

TL gives the torque required to overcome the

friction in order to lower the load
In certain instances, the load may itself lower by
causing the screw to spin
In such cases, TL is either zero or negative.
Whenever, the load does NOT lower by itself
unless a positive TL is applied, the screw is said to
be self-locking

TL 0 fd m l

f tan

Self-locking of Screw jack

A screw is self locking whenever the coefficient
of friction is greater than the tangent of the lead
angle.

f tan

Collar friction
Normally a collar is employed to enable the power screw system to
have sufficient bearing area hold the component being raised
Since the collar slides against the component being raised, additional
torque needs to be applied to raise the load, this is called as collar
friction torque Tc
To estimate the Tc, whenever the collar is not too big, it is enough to
use a mean diameter, dc, at which the collar friction force is
concentrated

Ff c d c
Tc
2
Total torque required to rise the load; TR = TR + Tc
Total torque required to rise the load; TL= TL + Tc

Power screws raising efficiency

It is the ratio of raising torque without friction to
the raising torque with friction
Can be defined both with and without collar
friction
Fl
Fd m l fd m
To

TR
2 d m fl
2

To
Fl

TR
2TR

Coefficient of friction (f)

Use Tables 8-5 and 8-6 for values of coefficient of f and fc.

Table 85
Coefficients of Friction f for Threaded Pairs

Table 86
Thrust-Collar Friction Coefficients

TR

Fd m
2

l fd m

d m fl

Raising torque for ACME screws

A simple approximate equation is
Fd m l fd m sec

TR
2 d m fl sec
The effect of the thread angle in ACME thread is to increase the
friction force between the screw and the nut due to the wedging
action of the thread.
For power screw application, though the ACME thread is not
suitable due to higher frictional force resulting from wedging action,
is commonly used because it is easier to manufacture than the
square threads.

Body stresses in power screws

6F
x
d r nt p
4F
y 2
d r

Bearing
pressure

z 0
n=Number of engaged threads

Critical element at which the

von-Mises stress is evaluated

T
F

Body stresses in power screws

Bending stress, x
Torsional shear stress, xy
Axial compressive stress, y

resultant is von-mises
stress at top of the root
plane

Transverse shear (no contribution to von-Mises stress

because it is maximum where bending stress is zero and is
zero where bending stress is maximum; hence needs to be
only independently checked for)
Bearing pressure (no contribution to von-Mises stress
because it is distributed over the thread and is maximum at
the middle of thread and is zero at the root of the thread)

Body stresses in the screw threads: vonMises stress at the critical element
Power screws are operated normally at low speeds and
hence static design is enough.

xy

16TR

d r3

or

xy

16TL

d r3

M
6F
2.28 F
x

I c d r nt p d r p

F 4F
y
A d r2
3

p
1
p
p
M F ; I (d r nt ) and c
4
12
4
2

The engaged threads cannot share the load equally. Some experiments show that the first
engaged thread carries a maximum of 38% of the load. In estimating thread stresses by
the equations above, substituting 0.38F for F and setting nt to 1 will give the largest level of
stresses in the thread-nut combination.

Body stresses in the screw threads:

von-Mises stress at the critical element
Resultant von-Mises stress

1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
x y y z z x 6 xy yz zx 2
'
2

1
1
2
2
2
2
2
x y y x 6 xy
'
2

Body stresses: Transverse shear and bearing

need to be independently checked (no need to consider in von-Mises stress)

F
2F

d m nt p 2 d m nt p

Must be less than the safe bearing pressure

given in Table 8-4. Causes too much wear
and sometimes crushing.

substituting 0.38F for F and setting nt to 1

will give the largest level of stresses in the
thread-nut combination.

Table 84
Screw Bearing Pressure

2F
0.76 F

d m nt p
d m p

3V 3
F
3F
1.14 F

2 A 2 d r nt p 2 d r nt p d r p

It is at the centre of the root

area. Must be less than the shear
yield strength of material.

Problem
A power screw has triple thread of major diameter 25 mm,
minor diameter 21.5 mm and pitch of 3 mm. A vertical load
on the screw reaches a maximum of 6 kN. The coefficient
of friction is 0.06 for threads and 0.03 for collar. The
friction diameter of the collar is 30 mm. Find the following:
(a) total torque required to raise the load, (b) total torque
required to lower the load, (c) efficiency, (d) bending stress,
axial normal stress, torsional shear stress and the resultant
von-Mises at the root for one thread (by assuming the first
engaged thread carries a maximum of 0.38 of the load). (e)
bearing and transverse shear stress