Using Lever Analogy Diagrams In Teaching Compound Planetary Gear Trains

The planetary gear trains are widely used in many automotive, aerospace and marine applications. The planetary gear trains are introduced to undergraduate mechanical engineering students in the course of Kinematics and Dynamics of Machines. Traditional methods of analyzing planetary gear trains, by means of torque and speed calculations, tend to be slow and cumbersome. The complexity involved has, no doubt, kept many students from becoming familiar with the capability of planetary gearing. It is our intent in this paper to describe the lever analogy method of analysis and to present a miniature ‘cookbook’ of levers for various planetary arrangements.