Worm Gear

A worm gear is a gear consisting of a shaft with a spiral thread that engages with and drives a toothed wheel. Worm gears are an old style of gear, and a version of one of the six simple machines. Basically, a worm gear is a screw butted up against what looks like a standard spur gear with slightly angled and curved teeth. The primary benefit of worm gears is their ability to provide high reduction ratios and correspondingly high torque multiplication. They can also be used as speed reducers in low- to medium-speed applications.