Curved Screw-Tool Drive Profiles for Stable High-Torque Coupling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing screw and rotary tool connections often suffer from unintentional detachment and edge damage due to high torque requirements, making it difficult to achieve a secure, coaxial alignment necessary for automated manufacturing processes.
Innovation Solution
The use of driving profiles with constantly inclined drive surfaces, where the surfaces are concave or convex and complementary to each other, ensuring contact on both sides of the curvature apex without contact in transition regions, allowing for a force-fit and clamping connection that transmits high torque without damaging the profiles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional driving profiles with flat surfaces are used, then the structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but the connection is unstable and prone to unintentional detachment under high torque
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies curvature by replacing flat drive surfaces with concave and convex curved surfaces on the driving profiles. The outer driving profile has convex curved surfaces while the inner driving profile has concave curved surfaces, creating a clamping connection through surface contact. This curved geometry prevents unintentional detachment and enables stable torque transmission while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through standard forming processes.
2Power
If high torque is transmitted through conventional flat drive surfaces, then power transmission is sufficient, but edge damage occurs on the driving profiles
Solution Approach 1:
The curved surface design distributes the contact area between mating driving profiles, replacing concentrated edge contact with distributed surface contact. The concave-convex surface geometry creates a clamping effect that spreads torque transmission forces across the entire contact surface, preventing stress concentration and edge damage while maintaining high torque transmission capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the geometric parameters of the drive surfaces from flat to curved, specifically designing the outer profile with convex curvature and the inner profile with concave curvature. This parameter change transforms the contact mechanics from edge-based to surface-based, enabling high torque transmission without the harmful edge effects that occur with conventional flat surfaces.
3Ease of operation
If magnetic rotary tools are used to simplify handling, then ease of operation improves, but coaxial alignment cannot be achieved for automated processes
Solution Approach 1:
The curved driving profile surfaces create a self-aligning clamping connection when plugged together axially. The concave-convex geometry guides the components into coaxial alignment through surface contact, eliminating the need for magnetic attraction while enabling both easy handling and precise alignment suitable for automated manufacturing processes.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for connecting a screw and a rotary tool in a rotationally fixed manner, wherein the drive surfaces of the driving profiles have a constant inclination relative to their profile axis, which is the same for all drive surfaces of both components. In the component with the outer driving profile, the drive surfaces are all concave or all convex, and in the component with the inner driving profile, the drive surfaces are curved complementary to the drive surfaces of the outer driving profile, in such a way that, in the plugged-together state, the drive surfaces of the two components, viewed in the circumferential direction, come into surface contact/engagement with one another on both sides of the apex of the concave/convex curvature. The driving profiles are designed in such a way that they do not come into contact with each other in the transition regions located between the drive surfaces.