Prof. Dr.-Ing.Oliver Koch studied mechanical engineering and completed his doctorate at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. After that, he worked for Schaeffler for 14 years, most recently as VP R&D Analysis Tools and Methods. Since 2021, he has been a professor at the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau and heads the Chair of Machine Elements, Gears and Tribology.
For worm gearboxes, oils are mainly used in combination with splash lubrication. Consistent lubricants, such as greases, are used less frequently and are used, for example, in gearboxes where it is not possible or difficult to seal the housing (Ref. 1). These applications include positioning gears, but also power gears with high sealing requirements, such as in the food industry. Grease lubrication has, in comparison to oil, a negative thermal effect on the worm, resulting in higher mass temperatures (Ref. 2). However, this effect becomes less relevant in the application of positioning gears, so that the advantages of grease lubrication outweigh the disadvantages in these applications.
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