Analysis of a planetary gear modelled with a contour graph considering the decision making complexity of game-tree structures

¹ Opole University of Technology, Faculty of Production Engineering and Logistics, Institute of Processes and Products Innovation, Ozimska 75, 45-370 Opole, Poland,
² University of Bielsko-Biala, Faculty of Machine Building and Computer Science, Department of Mechanical Engineering Fundamentals, Willowa 2, 43-309 Bielsko-Biała, Poland

^* Corresponding author: a.deptula@po.opole.pl

Abstract

Analysis and synthesis of mechanisms is one of the fundamental tasks of engineering. Mechanisms can suffer from errors due to versatile reasons. Graph-based methods of analysis and synthesis of planetary gears constitute an alternative method for checking their correctness. Previous applications of the graph theory concerned modelling gears for dynamic analysis, kinematic analysis, synthesis, structural analysis, gearshift optimization and automatic design based on so-called graph grammars. Some tasks may be performed only with the methods resulting from the graph theory, e.g. enumeration of structural solutions. The contour plot method consists in distinguishing a series of consecutive rigid units of the analysed mechanism, forming a closed loop (so-called contour). At a later stage, it is possible to analyze the obtained contour graph as a directed graph of dependence. This work presents an example of the application of game-tree structures in describing the contour graph of a planetary gear. In addition, complex parametric tree structures are included.