Anand Varadharajan received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Anna University, Chennai, India, in 2014, and a master’s degree in electromechanical engineering from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium, and the Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels (under a Bruface joint program), in 2020. Prior to his master’s he worked with the KONE elevators as a design engineer for three years. Since 2020, he has been working as a researcher with the Robotics and Multibody Mechanics Group, VUB and his research interests include optimization of gearbox efficiency based on tooth profile modifications.
The earliest example of a gear train dates to at least 2,000 B.C. when Chinese engineers built a chariot that used a complex planetary mechanism made of wooden gears to let a dragon head continuously point south when driven around (Ref. 1). In Greece, a surprisingly advanced Antikythera gearbox mechanism, incorporating at least 37 precisely crafted bronze gears, was built years later, between 205–60 B.C. (Ref. 2).
Today, gearboxes are inevitable in numerous applications requiring high power density including wind turbines, electric vehicles, cranes, robotics, etc. A combination of high-ratio gearboxes with high-speed, low-torque motors is often used to achieve high power density. Planetary gear trains (PGTs) help achieve a high gear ratio in a compact arrangement. Several configurations of planetary gears are widely studied in this article where the gear profiles used in these studies are primarily involute.
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