Toroidal drive with half stator

Abstract

The toroidal drive can transmit large torque. However, it is a hard work to produce small toroidal stator which limits the miniaturization of the toroidal drive. Here, a novel toroidal drive with half stator is proposed for which the small stator can be produced easily. For the novel toroidal drive, three-dimensional design and the motion simulation are done; the forces and the contact stress in drive system are investigated; and the output torque is compared with one of the normal toroidal drives. Results show that the output torque of the toroidal drive with half stator is almost the same as the output torque of the normal toroidal drive, and the half stator toroidal drive is a good design for realizing the miniaturization of the toroidal drive.