Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Jtekt Corporation

Masafumi Takahashi

Masashi Yamaguchi

Yoshiaki Asahara

Masayoshi Asakura

Masahide Nitano

Tatsuhiro Yamamoto

Kiyoshi Uchiyama

A steering apparatus includes a steered shaft; a rack housing; a ball screw nut; a bearing disposed between an inner peripheral surface of the rack housing and an outer peripheral surface of the ball screw nut, the bearing supporting the ball screw nut such that the ball screw nut is rotatable with respect to the rack housing; and a tubular rack boot covering an axial end portion of the rack housing. The rack housing includes a partition wall protruding radially inward from a cylindrical inner peripheral surface of the rack housing and separating a ball screw chamber housing the ball screw nut and an inner chamber of the rack boot. The partition wall has a through-hole through which the steered shaft extends, and a drain passage provided vertically below the through-hole and providing communication between the ball screw chamber and the inner chamber of the rack boot.

Steering apparatus

An electric power steering apparatus is configured to provide steering assistance as rotary torque of a driving toothed-pulley fixedly fitted to a rotary shaft of an electric motor is transmitted through a toothed belt to a driven toothed-pulley that rotates together with a ball screw nut in an integrated manner. The electric power steering apparatus is configured such that the amount of axial travel of a rack shaft is limited when a rack end and a housing come into contact with each other in the axial direction. The electric power steering apparatus includes a tilt allowing portion configured to cause the ball screw nut to tilt relative to a ball screw shaft such that the distance between the center of rotation of the driven toothed-pulley and that of the driving toothed-pulley increases when the rack end and the housing come into contact with each other in the axial direction.

Electric power steering apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Masafumi Takahashi