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On the kinematic synthesis of non-circular

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Article · June 2000

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 International Conference on Gears & Transmissions and mechanical Systems, Nottingham, 2000.

On the kinematic synthesis of non-circular gears

Giorgio Figliolini, Chiara Lanni, Marco Ceccarelli
Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics
DIMSAT – University of Cassino
Via G. Di Biasio, 43 – 03043 Cassino (Fr), Italy
e-mail: figliolini@ing.unicas.it

ABSTRACT

In this paper an algorithm is proposed for kinematic synthesis of non-circular gears. A

prescribed law of motion can be imposed through the constant center distance between a pair
of non-circular gears by giving pitch curve of driving gear or variable transmission ratio.
Consequently, the pitch curves of the driven gear and rack can be obtained. Although the
proposed algorithm can be easily extended to any type of non-circular gears, in this paper
particular attention has been addressed to elliptical gears with any order of pitch ellipses. The
kinematic synthesis of elliptical gears can be obtained in a suitable way and the rolling motion
of pitch curves and rack can be simulated in any configuration.

NOMENCLATURE
a maximum radius of ellipse 1
b minimum radius of ellipse 2
D center distance
m number of lobes of ellipse 1
n number of lobes of ellipse 2
R1,1 polar co-ordinates of points of curve 1
R2,2 polar co-ordinates of points of curve 2
 counter-clockwise rotation of gear 1
 clockwise rotation of gear 2
 transmission ratio
x1,y1 co-ordinates of points of ellipse 1
x2,y2 co-ordinates of points of ellipse 2
x3,y3 co-ordinates of points of rack 3
y*3 rack displacement along y axis
X1,Y1 co-ordinates of ellipse 1 in OXY
X2,Y2 co-ordinates of ellipse 2 in OXY
X3,Y3 co-ordinates of rack 3 in OXY

1. INTRODUCTION

Non-circular gears can be designed according to a prescribed law of motion in order to obtain
a variable transmission ratio (1). They show several advantages with respect to linkages or
cams because of their compact and easily balanced shape, which is important for high-speed
automatic machines. Continuous unidirectional cyclic motions can be also produced through

283
non-circular pairs of pinion-rack, while cams can give only reciprocating motion. Non-
circular gears can be applied as quick-return or intermittent mechanisms for automatic
packaging machines, winding machines or flying shears. These gears can also find several
applications in fluid engineering as for flow meter, lobe pumps or hydraulic motors. Although
logarithmic spiral gears were used in the past as function generators for mechanical computers
instead of linkages (2)(3), currently they can be useful for automatic machines. Recently, non-
circular gears have been applied to steering mechanisms in order to turn wheeled robots with
small radius in industrial production lines (4). A kinematic correspondence between non-
circular gears and non-circular chain drives has been proposed in (5) with the aim to
synthesise the pitch curves of non-circular sprockets with minimum chain slack. A series
assembly of elliptical gears and sine linkages has been analysed in (6) for CAD design and
dynamic simulations. General remarks about rolling surface mechanisms are discussed in (7).
These mechanisms allow the transmission of power and motion in machines with minimum
energy loss. The relative motion between non-circular gears can be represented through pitch
curves, which perform a rolling motion without sliding. A kinematic analysis has been
developed in (8) for generating identical pairs of non-circular pitch curves.
In literature, the most common form of non-circular gears is elliptical because of their well-
known pitch curves, (9)(10)(11)(12). Elliptical gears are capable to perform continuous
motions. The basic ellipses are used as pitch curves for the simplest pair of elliptical gears,
which have each wheel rotating about one of its foci. Higher order ellipses, usually until forth
order, can be used in different combinations with the aim to obtain several laws of motion
(13). The order of pitch ellipse corresponds to its natural number of lobes and thereby the
speed cycles for each revolution of driving gear can be increased for higher order. Although
first studies can be found since the beginning of this century, the difficulties in the design and
manufacture of elliptical gears have limited their applications in industrial environment.
Currently, modern computational techniques and available CNC machine tools allow the
design and manufacture of several types of elliptical gears. Recently, a computerised tooth
profile generation of non-circular gears by means of shape-cutters has been proposed in (14).
This method represents an alternative to hob and rack-cutter generations because of the
convex-concave shape of some pitch curves.
In the previous paper (15), an algorithm for the kinematic synthesis of spatial gears with skew
axes has been formulated for design proposes. Ruled hyperboloids for any pair of skew gears
or pinion-rack has been obtained. This paper deals with the kinematic synthesis of non-
circular gears with parallel axes of rotation. An algorithm has been formulated in this paper in
order to design any pair of elliptical pitch curves and simulate their rolling motion without
sliding. The geometric and kinematic features of elliptical gears have been expressed in terms
of lobe dimensions and transmission ratio for different combinations of any order of pitch
ellipses. This algorithm has been also extended to any pair of elliptical pinion-rack.

2. NON-CIRCULAR GEARS

The pitch curves of non-circular gears can be conveniently expressed in polar form as R=f (),
where R and  are radius and angle of the position vector respectively, Fig.1. The contact
point I between pitch curves is the instantaneous center of rotation for the relative motion
between both gears. In Fig.1 frame OXY is a fixed reference; O1x1y1 is a mobile frame fixed
to driving gear 1; O2x2y2 is a mobile frame fixed to driven gear 2; O3x3y3 is a mobile frame
fixed to rack 3; P1, P2 and P3 are correspondent points of pitch curves 1, 2 and 3 that become
coincident in I for a clockwise rotation 1 of gear 1.

284
 Fig.1 –Pitch curves of two gears and rack for a general pair of non-circular gears.

The pitch curves of driving gear R1=f1(1) and driven gear R2=f2(2) satisfy the following
fundamental equations

R1  R 2  D (1)

d1 d
R1   2 R 2 (2)
dt dt

where D is the constant center distance among the parallel rotation axes of the two gears. In
particular, equation (2) expresses the pure rolling of pitch curves during the transmission of
motion from driving gear to driven non-circular gear. Two main procedures can be proposed
in order to formulate the kinematic synthesis of both gears for a prescribed law of motion.
Each procedure can be deduced from the input data.
When the center distance D is assigned and the equation of driving pitch curve is given as

R1  f1 (1 ) (3)

the driven pitch curve as function of angle 1 can be obtained by equation (1) in the form

R 2  f 2 (1 ) (4)

The angle 2 of gear 2 is obtained by equation (2) as

1 R1
2     d1 (5)
0 R2

When the centre distance D is assigned and the transmission ratio  is given as

  f (1) (6)

285
the pitch radii of two non-circular gears can be obtained by equations (1) and (2) in the form

D
R1  (7)
 1

D
R2  (8)
 1

Analogously, the angle 2 can be obtained by equation (5).

The pitch curve equation y=f3(1) of rack can be obtained by imposing the pure rolling
contact with the pitch curve of its driving gear 1 or pinion as

dy d1
 R1 (9)
dt dt

When the expression of pitch curve 1 is given in polar form, the pitch curve of rack can be
obtained by means of the following integral

1
y   R1d1 (10)
0

3. ELLIPTICAL GEARS

A general equation of any m order elliptical curve can be given in polar form as

2ab
R1  (11)
(a  b)  (a  b) cos m 1

where the parameters a and b correspond to maximum and minimum radii of the mth order
ellipse respectively, Fig.2. The order m is given by any natural number. From a mechanical
viewpoint, the number m represents the number of lobes of driving pitch ellipse 1. For
example, a first order elliptical curve coincides with a basic ellipse and thus it shows one lobe
only; a second order ellipse shows two lobes and so on, as shown in Fig.2.
The driven elliptical pitch curve can be obtained through equation (1) by assuming center
distance D=a+b for ellipses with same order. The integral (5) can be solved for the case of
same mth order elliptical curves and thus 2 can be expressed as

2 a m 1 
2    tan 1  tan  (12)
m b 2 

Referring to Fig.1, the Cartesian forms can be obtained for both elliptical pitch curves with
same mth order as function of parameters 1 and 2 respectively as

x 1  R 1 cos 1
(13)
y1  R 1 sin1

286
Fig.2 – Examples of elliptical pitch curves of 1st , 2nd , 3rd and 4th order with same dimension a
and b of each lobe.

x 2  R 2 cos 2
(14)
y 2  R 2 sin2

Of course, R2 and 2 depend only by 1 since transmission system with a pure rolling contact
gives one degree of freedom only. The three frames O1x1y1, O2x2y2 and O3x3y3 have been
fixed to both gears 1 and 2 and to rack 3 with the aim to obtain their pitch curves respectively.
The equations (13) and (14) allow the determination of the pitch ellipses with respect to
frames O1x1y1, O2x2y2.
Referring to Fig.3, the Cartesian form (13) of pitch ellipse 1 can be expressed with respect to
fixed frame OXY, by using a rotation matrix in the following form

X1  cos   sin x1 

 Y    sin cos    y  (15)
 1   1

Thus, the rotation angle  of driven gear 2 can be expressed as a function of the input rotation
 by using equation (12) as

2 a m 
 tan 1  tan  (16)
m b 2 

Likewise equation (13), the Cartesian expressions (14) of pitch ellipse 2 can be expressed in
matrix form with respect to fixed frame OXY as

X 2  cos   sin D  x 2 
 Y    sin cos  0   y  (17)
 2   2 
 1   0 0 1   1 

287
Fig.3 – General configuration of basic elliptical gears with mobile frames O1x1y1 and O2x2y2
rotated according to pure rolling contact between their pitch ellipses. The mobile frame
O3x3y3 of rack is shown according to its translation along Y-axis.

In analogous way, the parametric form of pitch curve 3 of rack can be formulated as

x 3  R1
ab  a m 1  (18)
y3  2 tan 1  tan 

m  b 2 

with respect to mobile frame O3x3y3. Referring to Fig.3, the translation y*3 along Y axis of
the mobile frame O3x3y3 can be determined as a function of input rotation  in the form

ab  a m 
y*3  2 tan 1  tan  (19)
m  b 2 

Consequently, the pitch curve of rack can be formulated with respect to fixed frame OXY as

X 3   x 3   0 
 Y    y    y*  (20)
 3   3  3

4. GENERAL FORMULATION AND RESULTS

In this section a general algorithm will be formulated for the kinematic synthesis of any pair
of elliptical gears. Identical or different orders of pitch ellipses can be obtained by supposing
driving gear 1 with m lobes and driven gear 2 with n lobes. The law of motion can be given
by driving pitch curve 1 in the form of equation (3) or by transmission ratio in the form of
equation (6). Of course, the center distance D is not constant for different order of pitch

288
ellipses. It must be calculated according to the orders m and n of pitch ellipses and to
dimensions a and b of each lobe of ellipse 1. By solving the integral of Eq.(5) for R 1
expressed by Eq.(11) and R2 expressed by Eq.(1), the angle 2 of pitch ellipse 2 can be
obtained in general form as

2ab  a (b  D) m 1 
2    tan 1  tan (21)
m ab(a  D)(b  D)  ab(a  D)(b  D) 2 


where D is the center distance between two elliptical gears with any order of pitch ellipses.
When driving gear 1 fully rotates, driven gear 2 rotates m/n revolutions. By solving Eq.(21)
with 1=2 and 2=(m/n)2, for the center distance D can be obtained as

1  n2 
D  (a  b)  (a  b) 2  4ab1  2   (22)
2  m  


It is easy to verify that for n=m, equation (22) gives D=a+b as for identical elliptical gears.
A numerical algorithm can be proposed for design purposes of elliptical gears by using
Eqs.(11),(1),(22), (21). When the dimensions a, b of each lobe and the orders m, n of pitch
ellipses are given, the radii R1 and R2 of pitch ellipses can be obtained in polar form as
function of 1 and 2 respectively. Of course, the Cartesian forms are given by Eqs.(13) and
(14) and both can be expressed as function of input angle  by means of Eqs.(15) and (17).
Several simulations have been carried out in order to validate the proposed algorithm for the
kinematic synthesis of elliptical gears, as shown in Figs.4 to 9. Any pair of pitch curves can
be obtained in any configuration, which is given by the clockwise rotation  of driving gear.
The starting position of driving gear corresponds to =0 or in other words to a lobe of driving
pitch curve along X-axis of fixed frame. Fig.4a) shows a pair of identical first order ellipses,
which roll without sliding between them and pitch curve of rack. When driving gear rotates
counter-clockwise about its focus, the driven gear performs a clockwise rotation and rack
moves forward along to Y-axis of the fixed frame. The diagrams of radii R1 and R2 of both
gears and transmission ratio  with respect to angle  are shown in Fig.4b). In particular R1 is
indicated in bold continuous line. In analogous way Figs.5a) to 7a) show several pairs of
identical pitch ellipses with equal order, which are coupled with the pitch curves of their rack
respectively. A clockwise rotation of driving gear corresponds to a counter-clockwise rotation
of driven gear and translation of rack. It is worthy to note that a second order ellipse shows
two lobes as shown in Fig.5a), a third order shows three lobes as shown in Fig.6a), and a forth
order shows four lobes as shown in Fig.7a). Figs.5b) to 7b) show three diagrams, which
correspond to radii R1 and R2 of both gears and transmission ratio  as a function of . Figs.8
and 9 show two examples of ellipses with different order. It is worthy to note that when
driving gear 1 fully rotates, driven gear 2 rotates m/n revolutions. Figs.8a) and b) show gear 2
which rotates 240 deg because of m=2 and n=3. Figs.9a) and b) show gear 2 which rotates
270 deg because of m=3 and n=4. Therefore, it is evident that elliptical gears can be designed
with any natural number of lobes in order to increase the number of speed cycles for each
revolution of driving gear. The transmission ratio of the driven and driving gears can vary
very much as the difference between dimensions a and b of each lobe increases. However, it
is convenient to limit the variation of transmission ratio in order to ensure smooth running and
reduce the manufacturing problems due to convex-concave shape of pitch curves.

289
400 350
Y
300 [mm] 300
R2 [mm]
200
250
100 R1 [mm]
200
0
150
-100
100
-200 10*
50
-300
X [mm]  [deg]
0
-200 0 200 400 600 800 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
a) b)
Fig.4 – An example of 1st order ellipses and pitch curve of rack that have been designed with
a=332.29mm, b=67.71mm, =15deg to obtain D=400mm; =-65.73deg,y*3=85.13mm: a)
Kinematic scheme for mechanical design; b) Radii R1, R2 and  as functions of .
250 200
Y
200 [mm] 180
160
150 R2 [mm]
140
100
120
50 R1 [mm]
100
0 80
-50 60
-100 40
10*  [deg]
X [mm] 20
-150
0
-100 0 100 200 300 400 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
a) b)
Fig.5 – An example of 2nd order ellipses and pitch curve of rack that have been designed with
a=200mm, b=50mm, =45deg to obtain D=250mm; =-75.96deg, y*3=110.71mm: a)
Kinematic scheme for mechanical design; b) Radii R1, R2 and  as function of .
200
Y
200 [mm] 180
160
100 140
120
0 100
80
R2 [mm]
60
10*
-100
R1 [mm]
40
 [deg]
-200 20
X [mm]
-100 0 100 200 300 400 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
a) b)
Fig.6 – An example of 3rd order ellipses and pitch curve of rack that have been designed with
a=200mm, b=100mm, =20deg to obtain D=300mm; =-32.74deg, y*3=64.56mm: a)
Kinematic scheme for mechanical design; b) Radii R1, R2 and  as function of .

290
 Y 200
[mm] 180
200
160

100 140
120
0 100
R1 [mm] R2 [mm]
80
-100
10*
60
40
-200  [deg]
X [mm] 20
0
-100 0 100 200 300 400 500 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
a) b)
th
Fig.7 – An example of 4 order ellipses and pitch curve of rack that have been designed with
a=200mm, b=150mm, =15deg to obtain D=350mm; =-18.79deg, y*3=50.92mm: a)
Kinematic scheme for mechanical design; b) Radii R1, R2 and  as function of .
300
300
Y
[mm]
250
200
200
100 R2 [mm]
150
0
100
10*
-100
R1 [mm]
50
-200  [deg]
X [mm]
0
0 200 400 600 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
a) b)
th
Fig.8 – An example of 4 order ellipses and pitch curve of rack that have been designed with
m=2, a1=200mm, b1=100mm, n=3, =30deg to obtain D=367.94mm; =-30.59deg: a)
Kinematic scheme for mechanical design; b) Radii R1, R2 and  as function of .
300 250
Y
200 [mm] 200

100
150
0
100
-100
10* R2 [mm]
R1 [mm]
50
-200
 [deg]
X [mm]
-300 0
-100 0 100 200 300 400 500 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
a) b)
Fig.9 – An example of 4th order ellipses and pitch curve of rack that have been designed with
m=3, a1=200mm, b1=100mm, n=4, =50deg to obtain D=345.09mm; =-40.85deg: a)
Kinematic scheme for mechanical design; b) Radii R1, R2 and  as function of .

291
 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper a general algorithm has been formulated for the kinematic synthesis of elliptical
gears and several numerical simulations have been presented to validate it. Any pair of pitch
ellipses and pitch curve of their rack can be obtained as function of input rotation of driving
gear. Identical or different orders of pitch ellipses can be designed by means of the proposed
algorithm. The cyclical speed variation for each pair of elliptical gears can be analysed
because of suitable diagrams, which are deduced by the computer simulations. Therefore, the
authors believe that the proposed algorithm can be useful for the mechanical design of any
device, which is provided of elliptical gears.

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