The primary benefit of worm gears is their ability to provide high reduction ratios and correspondingly high torque multiplication. They can also be employed as quickness reducers in low- to medium-velocity applications. And, because their reduction ratio is founded on the number of gear teeth only, they are smaller sized than other styles of gears. Like fine-pitch business lead screws, worm gears are typically self-locking, which makes them well suited for hoisting and lifting applications.

Although the sliding contact decreases efficiency, it provides incredibly quiet operation. (The utilization of dissimilar metals for the worm and equipment also plays a part in quiet operation.) This makes worm gears ideal for use where sound should be minimized, such as in elevators. In addition, the application of a softer material for the gear means that it could absorb shock loads, like those experienced in hefty equipment or crushing devices.

The meshing of the worm and the apparatus is a mixture of sliding and rolling actions, but sliding contact dominates at high reduction ratios. This sliding action causes friction and heating, which limits the proficiency of worm gears to 30 to 50 percent. In order to minimize friction (and for that reason, heat), the worm and equipment are made from dissimilar metals – for instance, the worm may be made of hardened steel and the gear made of bronze or aluminum.

Such as a ball screw, the worm in a worm gear may have a single start or multiple starts – meaning that there are multiple threads, or helicies, on the worm. For a single-start worm, each total transform (360 degrees) of the worm advances the gear by one tooth. So a gear with 24 teeth provides a gear reduction of 24:1. For a multi-begin worm, the apparatus reduction equals the number of teeth on the gear, divided by the amount of starts on the worm. (That is different from almost every other types of gears, where in fact the gear reduction is certainly a function of the diameters of the two components.)

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