Modeling of axial contact stiffness of a double-nut with preloads

Ball screw drives are commonly used to provide linear motion in machine tools. And stiffness is one of the most important performance indexes. However, stiffness of nuts with different preloads is difficult to be calculated precisely because of complex structures. In order to improve the calculating accuracy, a new model is proposed with the consideration of geometry errors of grooves and balls based on the existing theoretical model. The influence of geometry errors on axial deformation of double-nut is analyzed and modeled. Meanwhile, a preload-adjustable ball screw drive is constructed on the basis of a modified double-nut mechanism. A novel loading mechanism is designed to apply axial load on the working table and test the force in real time. Two laser displacement sensors are adopted to test axial deformation of the double-nut. The axial stiffness of the double-nut is analyzed based on the axial load and the axial deformation. Stiffness simulations of the new improved model, the theoretical model, and the empirical model are also analyzed. The contrastive analysis shows that the experimental results agree much better with the axial stiffness calculated by the new improved model. This study provides a more accurate model to calculate the stiffness of the double-nut with preloads for preloaded ball screw drives.