Worm gears are used in various applications such as actuators or power transmissions. Due to the feasibility of a high gear ratio in a small assembly space, they enable efficient and compact drive concepts, even in safety-critical applications, since they can be designed to be self-locking. During the operation of gearboxes, losses occur which are caused on the one hand by toothing and on the other hand by other machine elements such as bearings or seals. Most of these losses are transferred in the form of heat to the gear oil, which itself transfers them to the housing. During operation, the oil inside the housing is set in motion so that heat transport takes place in the form of convection. Complex flows occur inside the housing. The characteristics of these flows significantly determine the thermal operating point, thus also influence the efficiency and load carrying capacity of the gearbox. This article presents the results of oil sump flow investigations. For this purpose, the housing of a series worm gearbox was adapted with transparent covers so the oil flow occurring during operation of the gearbox could be recorded. Subsequently, the experimental data was compared with existing flow models, so that this publication presents an initial calculation approach for the oil flow of worm gear drives with dip lubrication.
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