High-precision and long-range measurement of micro-gear starting torque

The ability to measure micro-starting torque is pivotal for micromechanical equipment, which has wide usage in mechanical manufacturing, electrical, electronic, and other industries. However, the measurement range of existing methods is about N⋅m or mN⋅m. There is not much research on the measurement of micro-torque starting in the µN⋅m. In this paper, a novel micro-gear starting torque measurement system, to the best of our knowledge, is proposed based on an optical lever with a long range from 1 to 10µN⋅m. The system device consists of the optical lever, cantilever, and position sensitive device. A micro-gear was used to assess the performance of the proposed method. The standard deviation of the measured starting torque is 1.2µN⋅m. The external factors that can contribute to the uncertainty of the measurement system, such as force measurement, arm of force, and repeatability, have been analyzed and quantified. The relative combined uncertainty is estimated at 3.0%, approximately.