The Mechanical Efficiency of Epicyclic Gear Trains

The analysis of mechanical efficiency constitutes an important phase in the design analysis of gear drives. The objective of this investigation has been the development of a general algorithm for the determination of efficiency in split-power spur-gear trains. The model includes meshing losses only; for a more realistic estimation other sources can be considered separately. The systematic nature of the formulation, based on the dual correspondence between the kinematic structure of the gear drive and a labelled graph, allows a ready coding of the efficiency analysis in a general computer program. The numerical results are in line with those given by other authors using different methodologies.