Advances in the Research and Development of Rotary Motion Driven Machine Elements - Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2018, Vol. 10(9) 1–8
Ó The Author(s) 2018
A new model for predicting the DOI: 10.1177/1687814018800173
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
mechanical efficiency of ball screws
based on the empirical equations for
the friction torque of rolling bearings

Chang-Guang Zhou, Hu-Tian Feng and Yi Ou

Abstract
Based on the empirical equations for the friction torque of rolling bearings, this article proposes a new model for pre-
dicting the friction torque and mechanical efficiency of ball screws. Meanwhile, a novel measuring system is constructed
to obtain the mechanical efficiency of ball screws, where both the axial load and rotational speed are stable and adjusta-
ble. The experimental results at a rotational speed of 1000 r/min agree well with the theoretical values calculated by the
present method, which show that the mechanical efficiency of ball screws increases with increasing axial load. Moreover,
the model built in this article is more applicable to a relatively high-speed condition. The new model can be easily used
to obtain the friction torque and mechanical efficiency for ball screws, which is essential for improving the performance
of ball screws and the computer numerical control machine tools.

Keywords
Ball screws, friction torque, mechanical efficiency, empirical equation, rolling bearings

Date received: 19 February 2018; accepted: 16 August 2018

Handling Editor: Jan Torgersen

Introduction et al.6 developed a new systematic creep analysis model

to calculate the friction torque of ball screws. The coef-
Ball screws are widely used in computer numerical con- ficient of friction used in their study was empirically
trol (CNC) machine tools to convert rotational motion chosen as 0.03. Based on the force equilibrium analysis
into linear motion.1,2 One of the most important fea- of the balls in a ball screw, Wei and Lin7 built a theore-
tures of the mechanism is its high mechanical efficiency, tical model to calculate friction torque of ball screws.
which makes it to be one of the most suitable feed drive However, the coefficient of friction obtained through
mechanisms in CNC machine tools.3,4 their model is only about 0.0001 at a rotational speed
In a ball screw mechanism, excessive friction torque
in a ball screw will significantly degrade its mechanical
efficiency. Therefore, it is of great significance to inves-
tigate the friction torque of ball screws. Due to the geo-
metrical and loading complexity of the ball screw Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and
mechanism, current researchers mainly calculate the Technology, Nanjing, China
friction torque of ball screws through a pre-assumed
Corresponding author:
coefficient of friction. D Olaru et al.5 built a new model
Yi Ou, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of
to estimate the friction torque of ball screws with the Science and Technology, 200 Xiaolingwei Street, Nanjing 210094, China.
coefficient of friction varying from 0.02 to 0.2. Xu Email: [email protected]

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open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

of 100 r/min, which is obviously erroneous.8 As afore- Theoretical analysis

mentioned, all the coefficients of friction used in the
above studies are different from each other, which will
Friction torque of ball bearings
lead to different theoretical results of the mechanical The total friction of a given ball bearing under moder-
efficiency for a certain ball screw even under the same ate preload, lubricant, and speed conditions is the sum
working condition. of the friction torque, viscous torque, and spinning fric-
Lin et al.9,10 presented two studies of the kine- tion moment. This is due to the fact that the spinning
matics of ball screws to describe the ball motion and friction moment is very small and is usually ignored
mechanical efficiency, which contributes to achieve when calculating the total friction of a given ball bear-
the optimum design of ball screws. Based on Lin’s ing. Therefore, the total friction of a given ball bearing
study, Wei et al.11 studied the kinematics of a single- can be expressed as17
nut double-cycle ball screw by considering the friction
force produced by a ball moving in an oil lubricant, M = M1 + Mv ð1Þ
in which both of the mechanical efficiency with and where M1 is the friction torque due to the applied load,
without oil lubrication were compared and discussed. and Mv is the frictional torque due to lubricant viscos-
And in 2011, considering the theoretical driving tor- ity, defined as follows17
que, axial load, and the orbital angular speeds of the
ball, Wei and Lai12 presented another study to calcu- M1 = f1 Fb dm ð2Þ
late the mechanical efficiency of the single-nut dou-
ble-cycle ball screw at a rotational speed higher than Mv = 107 f0 (v0 n)2=3 dm3 , v0 nø2000 ð3Þ
1000 r/min. However, in the above studies, numerous
Mv = 160 3 107 f0 dm3 , v0 n\2000 ð4Þ
factors, such as the contact angle variation, centrifu-
gal force, inertial force, and coefficient of friction, in which f1 is a factor depending on the bearing design
must be accurately obtained to calculate the mechani- and relative bearing load, Fb is determined by the mag-
cal efficiency of ball screws, which makes it difficult nitude and direction of the applied load, dm is the mean
for the above studies to apply to different working diameter of the bearing, f0 is a factor related to bearing
conditions. type and lubrication method, v0 is the kinematic viscos-
A lot of accurate numerical models are available for ity of the lubricant, and n is the rotational speed.
the calculation of the viscous losses generated in a ball According to Tedric and Kotzalas17 and Lundberg
bearing at high rotational speeds.13–15 However, limited and Palmgren,18 the factor, f1 , in equation (2) can be
by the parameter of DN (\2 3 105 mm  r=min), the written as
critical rotational speed of ball screws is only about
 y
one-tenth of the critical rotational speed of ball bear- Fs
f1 = z ð5Þ
ings in the same size. This means the normal rotational Coa
speed of ball screws only is a very low rotational speed
for ball bearings. And it has turned out that the empiri- where Fs is the static equivalent load, Coa is the basic
cal equations for the friction torque of rolling element static load rating, z and y are two coefficients that can
bearings, which was built by Arvid16 through experi- be obtained following Tedric and Kotzalas.17
ments, are much more useful than the equations built
through theoretical methods, especially in the slow-to- Friction torque of ball screws
moderate speed condition.17 Because the kinematic
behavior of a ball screw is similar to a ball bearing,11,12 Similar to ball bearings, the total friction of a given ball
the empirical equations applied to a ball bearing can screw also includes the load torque and the viscous fric-
thus be exploited and modified to fit the ball screw tion torque as expressed in equation (1).
motion. Therefore, in this work, a new model for pre-
dicting the mechanical efficiency of ball screws is built Friction torque due to applied load. It is a common sense
based on the empirical equations for the friction torque that the initial contact angle of a ball screw is usually
of rolling bearings. The theoretical results are consis- set as 45°, which means a ball screw with N ball circles
tent with the experimental results and previous find- can be regarded as a combination of N angular-contact
ings,11 which prove the present model is valid. This ball bearings, as shown in Figure 1.
study provides a new model to obtain the friction tor- For an angular-contact ball bearing with the initial
que and mechanical efficiency for ball screws, which is contact angle of 45°, the basic static load rating can be
essential for improving performance of ball screws and written as19
the CNC machine tools.
Coa = f00 ZD2b sin a ð6Þ
Zhou et al. 3

X
N  0:33
3 Fsi Fa
M1 = 1:3 3 10  2
  dm
i=1
k0 Zi Db sin a cos u N
ð9Þ
where N is the number of the ball circle, Fsi is the axial
load that the ith ball circle part sustains and Fa is the
axial load applied on the ball screw.
In addition, if the load distribution in a ball screw is
regarded as uniform, which means Fsi = Fa =N , then
equation (9) can be simplified as

1:3 3 103  Fa1:33 dm

M1 = 0:33
ð10Þ
(k0 NZi D2b sin a cos u)

Viscous frictional torque. According to Wei and Lin7 and

Figure 1. The schematic diagram of the assumption in this article. Tedric and Kotzalas,17 the angular velocities of the
ball’s revolution, vm , of the ball bearing and the ball
screw are exactly the same, which can be expressed as
where Z is the number of balls, Db is the ball diameter,
a is the initial contact angle, and f00 is a coefficient that v
vm = ð11Þ
can be obtained following Rolling bearings—Static (1 + g 0 cosao )(cosai + tan bsinai )
load ratings.19 1+
(1  g 0 cosai )(cosao + tan bsinao )
For a ball screw with one ball circle, the basic static
load rating can be written as20 where ai and ao represent the inner and outer contact
angles of the ball, respectively, b is the gyroscopic angle
0
Coa = k0 ZD2b sin a cos u ð7Þ and g 0 = Db =dm .
The angular velocity of the ball’s spinning of the ball
where u is the helix angle. The coefficient k0 can be bearing, vR , is written as17
written as20
vm (1 + g0 cos ao )
vR = ð12Þ
27:74 g 0 ( cos b cos ao + sin b sin ao )
k0 = r
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
   ð8Þ
2 1 2 2 cos a The angular velocity of the ball’s spinning of the ball
Db  Db  frs, n Db  Db + dm Db cos a
screw is written as7
where frs, n is conformity of the ball nut or the ball screw
vm (1 + g 0 cos ao )cosu
shaft. v0R = ð13Þ
g 0 ( cos b cos ao + sin b sin ao )
Take a typical 4010 ball screw (dm = 40mm,
Db = 6:35mm, u = 4:558, a = 458, frs, n = 0:54, one ball This is due to the fact that the helix angle of a ball
circle) and a ball bearing with the same parameters as screw is usually less than 10°, thus cos u ’ 1, which
0
an example, the coefficient f0 in equation (6) is 52.7 means equations (12) and (13) can be regarded as the
(Db =dm  cos a ’ 0:11) and the coefficient k0 in equation same. This means the ball’s motion in a ball screw and
(7) is 54:9, almost the same as f00 . Substituting these val- a ball bearing is similar to each other, which also indi-
ues into equations (6) and (7), we can see that cates the assumption made in Figure 1 is valid.
0
Coa =Coa = 0:96, which means the basic static load rat- Therefore, the viscous frictional torque of ball screw
ing of a ball screw and a ball bearing with the same can also be obtained according to the viscous frictional
parameters can be regarded as the same, indicating the torque of ball bearing, which can be written as
assumption made in Figure 1 is reasonable.
This is due to the fact that ball screws are mainly Mv = 107 f0 (v0 n)2=3 dm3  N , v0 n ø 2000 ð14Þ
subject to an axial load. Therefore, for the ith ball circle
part in a ball screw, according to Rolling bearings— Mv = 160 3 107 f0 dm3  N , v0 n\2000 ð15Þ
Static load ratings19 we can get z = 0.0013, y = 0.33, Therefore, the frictional torque of ball screw can be
and Fb = Fa . Combining equations (2), (5), and (7), the obtained by combining equations (1), (9), (14), and
frictional torque due to the applied axial load of ball (15). As introduced in section ‘‘Friction torque due to
screws can be written as applied load’’, the initial contact angle of a ball screw is
usually set as 45°, which means a ball screw with N ball
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

circles can be regarded as a combination of N angular-

contact ball bearings. According to Tedric and
Kotzalas,17 for angular-contact ball bearings, f0 = 2.
Therefore, for ball screws, f0 = 2.

Mechanical efficiency of ball screw and ball screw

feed drive system
The mechanical efficiency of a ball screw or a ball screw
feed drive system is defined as the ratio of the output
Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the ball screw test bench.
work to the input work,11,12 which can be expressed by

Fa Ph
h= ð16Þ
Minput  2p
where Ph is the lead and Minput is the input torque,
which can be written as

Minput = MQ + M1 + Mv ð17Þ
in which MQ is the torque applied on the screw shaft
due to the normal contact force on the ball-screw con-
tact surfaces, which can be obtained in Wei and Lin.7
This is due to the fact that bearings are usually
mounted at both ends of the screw shaft. Therefore, the
friction torque of the bearing should also be taken into Figure 3. Test bench of ball screws.
account when calculating the input torque of the feed
drive system, which can be written as
Table 1. Parameters used in the operation test.
Minput = MQ + M1 + Mv + MBQ + MB1 + MBv ð18Þ
Parameters Value Unit
where MBQ , MB1 , and MBv are the frictional torque due
Diameter of the ball, Db 4.76 mm
to the preload, applied load, and lubricant viscosity, which Radius of the raceway, rs 2.477 mm
can be obtained through equations (2), (3), and (4). Nominal diameter of ball screw, dm 40 mm
Helix angle, u 3.64 degree
Contact angle, ai , ao 45 degree
Experimental verification Helical pitch, Ph 8 mm
Circle’s number 3 column’s number, i 531
The traditional method to apply an axial load on a ball Viscosity of the grease 100 cst
screw is through a tool carriage with external mass.21,22 Environment temperature 20 6 1 Celsius
In this way, the direction of the applied axial load on the
acceleration and deceleration strokes will be opposite due
to the inertial force of the carriage. In the uniform speed to connect with the two ball screws. The friction torque
stroke, the applied axial load will be very small due to of ball screw ffl (applied by the electric eddy current
the small friction of the linear guide, which will make the brake) must be offset before ball screw ffi rotates. In
applied axial load quite inconsistent over the entire this way, an axial load (Fa ), which can be detected by
stroke. Therefore, a novel test bench of the ball screw is the pull-pressure sensor, is then applied to the test
constructed, which consists of the following components: bench when ball screw ffi rotates along with the servo
a servo motor (SGMGV-lEADA61), an electric eddy motor. The friction torque (Minput , detected by the
current brake (WZP-140), a pull-pressure sensor dynamic torque meter assembled between the servo
(FUTEK LSB400, with a sensitivity of 2 mV/Vnom), motor and ball screw ffi) and axial load (Fa ) can be
two torque meters (FUTEK TRS605, with a sensitivity controlled by adjusting the voltage of the electric eddy
of 280 mV/g), two work tables, two ball screws, and two current brake. The friction torque (Minput ) and axial
linear guides, as shown in Figures 2 and 3. load (Fa ) are measured at three different levels of rota-
Ball screw ffi and ball screw ffl are assembled with tional speed under a lubricating mode of grease
the servo motor and the electric eddy current brake, (Mobiltemp SHC100#), in which with each level
respectively. Work table ffi and work table ffl, which repeated for three times. The parameters used in the
are connected by the pull-pressure sensor, are designed operation test are shown in Table 1. It is worth
Zhou et al. 5

Table 2. Experimental and theoretical input torque of the feed drive system.

Fa (KN) Experimental Minput (N m) Theoretical Minput (N m) Relative error (%)

100 r/min 500 r/min 1000 r/min 100 r/min 500 r/min 1000 r/min 100 r/min 500 r/min 1000 r/min

1.44 5.34 3.56 3.22 2.52 2.62 2.71 –52.92 –26.43 –15.90
1.98 6.51 4.15 3.92 3.25 3.35 3.44 –50.11 –19.18 –12.17
2.47 7.33 5.07 4.55 3.92 4.02 4.11 –46.53 –20.62 –9.58
2.95 8.11 5.59 5.13 4.58 4.68 4.77 –43.52 –16.31 –6.96
3.45 8.69 6.12 5.89 5.27 5.37 5.46 –39.40 –12.26 –7.18
4.01 9.53 6.97 6.54 6.03 6.13 6.22 –36.73 –12.04 –4.86
4.95 11.33 8.23 7.99 7.35 7.45 7.55 –35.14 –9.39 –5.59
5.90 12.50 9.56 9.31 8.68 8.78 8.88 –30.56 –8.09 –4.62
7.95 16.07 12.69 12.31 11.57 11.67 11.77 –28.01 –8.03 –4.43
10.10 19.38 15.65 15.33 14.63 14.73 14.82 –24.52 –5.85 –3.30
11.80 22.19 17.84 17.76 17.06 17.17 17.26 –23.10 –3.80 –2.83
13.95 25.58 21.03 20.79 20.16 20.26 20.36 –21.17 –3.65 –2.08

For a rotational speed of 1000 r/min, the relative error

of input torque calculated in this article is within
15.9%, which indicates the model built in this article is
valid.
The experimental and theoretical results of the
mechanical efficiency of the feed drive system under dif-
ferent axial loads and rotational speeds are shown in
Figure 4. The experimental mechanical efficiency shows
a similar tendency as that exhibited in the theoretical
result, which proves the validity of the present model.
Under a certain rotational speed, the mechanical effi-
ciency increases with increasing axial load, which is
consistent with the experimental results of previous
findings.11,12 Under a certain axial load, the theoretical
mechanical efficiency decreases with increasing rota-
Figure 4. Experimental and theoretical mechanical efficiency of tional speed. This is because that the viscous friction
the feed drive system. torque, Mv , increases with increasing rotational speed,
leading to the increase in the input torque. Thus, the
mentioning that for ball screw ffi and ball screw ffl, mechanical efficiency is decreased. However, the experi-
two sets of paired bearing (HRB-7603030TN/P4DBB, mental mechanical efficiency increases with increasing
Db = 30 mm, Coa = 14:7 KN) in tandem are arranged rotational speed under a certain axial load. This can be
back to back and mounted at both ends of the screw attributed to the fact that an oil film is hard to form at
shaft with axial preload. The input torque is about a low rotational speed, which leads to a poor lubricat-
1.08 N m when the voltage of the electric eddy current ing condition and a low mechanical efficiency. When
brake is zero, which means the frictional torque, MBQ , the rotational speed increases, it is easy to form an oil
is about 0.54 N m for each ball screw feed drive system film, which leads to a good lubricating condition and a
(one ball screw and four ball bearings). relatively high mechanical efficiency. Besides, although
the experiment was done in a thermostatic chamber
(20°C 6 1°C), different rotational speeds (100–1000 r/
Results and discussion min) and loads (1.44–13.95 KN) produce different
Table 2 shows the experimental and theoretical input amounts of losses and, consequently, different operat-
torque of the feed drive system (ball screw ffi and ball ing temperatures, which may also lead to the differ-
bearings mounted at both ends of the screw shaft) ences between the experimental and the empirical
under different axial load and rotational speed. Under results.23,24 The relative error of the experimental and
a certain rotational speed, the relative error of input theoretical input torque of the feed drive system is more
torque calculated in this article decreases with increas- than 21% when the rotational speed is 100 r/min, which
ing axial load. And under a certain axial load, the rela- shows that the present model may not be suitable for
tive error decreases with increasing rotational speed. ball screws or not suitable at a low rotational speed.
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 5. Theoretical mechanical efficiency of ball screw ffi.

Figure 6. Viscous torque and friction torque of ball screw ffi.
And the error is relatively small at a high rotational
speed, which indicates the model built in this article is
system is built based on the empirical equations for the
more applicable to a relatively high-speed condition.
friction torque of rolling element bearings. The main
It is worth mentioning that the maximum value of
conclusions are as follows:
DN of ball screws is about 2 3 105 mm  r=min.
Therefore, for ball screw ffi with the nominal diameter
of 40 mm, the corresponding critical rotational speed is 1. In an angular-contact ball bearing and a ball
about 5000 r/min. The theoretical mechanical efficiency screw with one ball circle, both the basic static
of ball screw ffi under different axial load and rota- load rating and the angular velocity are the
tional speed is shown in Figure 5 (100 cst). The same; this means screw with N ball circles can
mechanical efficiency increases with increasing axial be regarded as a combination of N angular-
load and decreases with increasing rotational speed. As contact ball bearings.
shown in Figure 5, to maintain the mechanical effi- 2. For a rotational speed of 1000 r/min, the relative
ciency of ball screw ffi higher than 90% under a grease error of input torque of the ball screw feed drive sys-
viscosity of 100 cst, the rotational speed should be tem calculated in this article is within 15.9%, which
lower than 5000 r/min or the axial load should be indicates the model built in this article is valid.
higher than 1 KN. 3. The experimental results of the mechanical effi-
As we can see in Figures 4 and 5, the viscous torque ciency of the ball screw feed drive system show
and friction torque are the main factors leading to the a similar tendency as that of the theoretical
decrease in the mechanical efficiency. Therefore, the results. The discrepancy between the experimen-
comparison between the viscous torque and friction tal and theoretical results is relatively small at a
torque of ball screw ffi is shown in Figure 6. The fric- high rotational speed, which indicates the pres-
tion torque increases with increasing axial load, inde- ent model is more applicable for a relatively
pendent of the rotational speed. The viscous torque high-speed condition.
increases with increasing rotational speed and grease 4. For ball screw ffi used in this study, to maintain
viscosity. The friction torque and viscous torque are a mechanical efficiency higher than 90%, the
very close when the grease viscosity is lower than rotational speed should be lower than 5000 r/min
100 cst. However, when the grease viscosity is over or the axial load should be higher than 1 KN.
5. When the grease viscosity is over 100 cst, the vis-
100 cst, the viscous torque will become higher than the
cous torque will be higher than the friction tor-
friction torque, and the discrepancy increases with
que, and the discrepancy increases with
increasing rotational speed, which means the viscous
increasing rotational speed, which means the vis-
torque will become the main factor leading to the
cous torque will become the main reason leading
decrease in the mechanical efficiency.
to the decrease in the mechanical efficiency.

Conclusion Acknowledgements
In this work, a new model for predicting the mechani- The authors greatly thank the Key Laboratory of
cal efficiency of ball screws and ball screw feed drive Performance Test and Reliability Technology for CNC
Zhou et al. 7

Machine Tool Components of Chinese Machinery Industry partitioning-based meshing methodology for the applica-
for providing the experiment materials. tion of a computational effort reduction strategy to com-
plex gearbox configurations. Lubric Sci 2017; 29:
455–474.
Declaration of conflicting interests 15. Min X and Jiang S. A thermal model of the ball screw
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with feed drive system for machine tool. P I Mech Eng C-J
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this Mec 2011; 225: 186–193.
article. 16. Arvid P. Ball and roller bearing engineering. Philadelphia,
PA: SKF Industries Inc., 1959.
17. Tedric HA and Kotzalas MN. Advanced concepts of bear-
Funding
ing technology, rolling bearing analysis. 5th ed. Boca
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup- Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2007.
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this 18. Lundberg G and Palmgren A. Dynamic capacity of roll-
article: This study has been supported by the National Science ing bearings. J Appl Mech-T ASME 1949; 16: 196.
and Technology Major Projects of China (2016ZX04004007). 19. ISO76: 1987. Rolling bearings—Static load ratings.
20. Verl A and Frey S. Correlation between feed velocity and
preloading in ball screw drives. CIRP Annals 2010; 59:
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8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

M1 the frictional torque due to the z, y the coefficients related to bearing

applied load type
Minput the input torque Z the number of balls
Mv the frictional torque due to lubricant
viscosity a the initial contact angle
MBQ , MB1 , MBv the frictional torque due to the ai , ao the inner and outer contact angles
preload, applied load and lubricant b the gyroscopic angle
viscosity of ball bearing g0 the ratio of Db to dm
MQ the torque applied on the screw shaft h the mechanical efficiency
due to the normal contact force on u the helix angle
the ball-screw contact surfaces v the angular velocity of the screw
n the rotational speed of bearing shaft
N the number of ball circle vm the angular velocities of the ball’s
Ph the lead revolution
v0 the kinematic viscosity of the vR , v0R the angular velocity of the ball’s
lubricant spinning