Design and Finite Element Analysis of Cycloidal Gearboxes

Cycloidal gearboxes are part of power transmission systems that use a cycloidal disk instead of an involute gear to transmit power. The use of cycloidal gearboxes is limited due to complicated profile shapes, difficulties in fabrication, and lack of data in the design process of industrial gearboxes. The special mechanism of cycloidal disks provides a high conversion ratio in small dimensions in cycloidal gearboxes. In this research, the design of a cycloidal gearbox will be discussed. Firstly, the mechanism of cycloidal gearboxes will be introduced and its advantages will be described, the operation mechanism and main components will be explained and then a cycloidal gearbox for conversion of 1500rpm into 32rpm (conversion ratio 47) will be designed according to basic equations. The designed gearbox is modeled in SolidWorks software and analyzed in finite element software (Ansys software). The finite element results show that the principal stress and shear stress of the cycloidal disk and other parts of the gearbox were in the safe region of the design criteria. In addition, the rotational speed of the gearbox is not constant due to the eccentricity of the input shaft, and the average rotational speed is calculated based on the finite element results and agrees with the design value.