Epicyclic gear mechanisms concept with 7 forward gears
In 1992, Lepelletier proposed three degrees of freedom epicyclic gear mechanisms.[1] These are now called Lepelletier gear mechanisms.[2] The Lepelletier gearbox is constructed by connecting a planetary gear to a Ravigneaux gear.[3]
The transmission was the first of its kind to offer additional gear ratios by combining series and parallel coupling of the planetary gearsets without increasing the complexity of the design.
Due to these advantages, this gearset concept became widely used in automatic vehicle transmissions. ZF was the first to start series production in 2000. Aisin/Toyota, Ford, and GM followed in 2005. For the first time, the construction costs could be reduced compared to the respective predecessor models.
Specifications
Gearset concept: combined parallel and serial power flow for more gears and improved cost-effectiveness
Main objectives
The main objective in replacing the predecessor model was to improve vehicle fuel economy with extra speeds and a wider gear span to allow the engine speed level to be lowered (downspeeding). The layout brings the ability to shift in a non-sequential manner – going from gear 6 to gear 2 in extreme situations simply by changing one shift element (actuating clutch E and releasing brake A).
Extent
In order to increase the number of ratios, all major manufacturers has abandoned the conventional design method of limiting themselves to pure in-line epicyclic gearing and extended it to a combination with parallel epicyclic gearing. The 6HP from ZF is the first transmission designed according to this new paradigm. After gaining additional gear ratios only with additional components, this time the number of components has to decrease while the number of ratios still increase. The progress is reflected in a much better ratio of the number of gears to the number of components used compared to existing layouts.
No use of 5th gear from the original concept
The Lepelletier gearset concept actually provides 7 forward gears. However, the 5th gear, which is configured as a direct gear (ratio 1.00) in this configuration, requires a releaseable brake for S1 (sun gear of the first gearset, which is the simple one) and thus a 6th shifting element without any corresponding benefit: with ratios of approximately 1.15 and 0.85, the 4th and 6th gears are so close together that the 5th gear can easily be dispensed with. This means that all manufacturers can manage with 5 shifting elements and all transmissions built have 6 gear ratios instead of the possible 7.
Automobile manufacturers drive forward technical developments primarily in order to remain competitive or to achieve or defend technological leadership. This technical progress has therefore always been subject to economic constraints
Only innovations whose relative additional benefit is greater than the relative additional resource input, i.e. whose economic elasticity is greater than 1, are considered for realization
The required innovation elasticity of an automobile manufacturer depends on its expected return on investment. The basic assumption that the relative additional benefit must be at least twice as high as the relative additional resource input helps with orientation
negative, if the output increases and the input decreases, is perfect
3-speed transmissions with torque converters have established the modern market for automatic transmissions and thus made it possible in the first place, as this design proved to be a particularly successful compromise between cost and performance
It became the archetype and dominated the world market for around 3 decades, setting the standard for automatic transmissions. It was only when fuel consumption became the focus of interest that this design reached its limits, which is why it has now completely disappeared from the market
What has remained is the orientation that it offers as a reference standard (point of reference, benchmark) for this market for determining progressiveness and thus the market position of all other, later designs
All transmission variants consist of 7 main components
The ratios of the 6 gears are nicely evenly distributed in all versions. Exceptions are the large step from 1st to 2nd gear and the almost geometric steps from 3rd to 4th to 5th gear. They cannot be eliminated without affecting all other gears. As the large step is shifted due to the large span to a lower speed range than with conventional gearboxes, it is less significant. As the gear steps are smaller overall due to the additional gear(s), the geometric gear steps are still smaller than the corresponding gear steps of conventional gearboxes. Overall, therefore, the weaknesses are not overly significant. As the selected gearset concept saves up to 2 components compared to 5-speed transmissions, the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages.
The limitations of the Lepelletier gearset lie in the number of gear ratios provided and in the efficiency issues that Ravigneaux gearsets always contend with. Therefore, starting in 2008 with the ZF 8HP, the Lepelletier gearset was replaced by gearset concepts with even more gears and largely dispensing with the use of Ravigneaux gearsets. This was followed later by the GM 8L, Aisin-Toyota 8-speed transmission, and the Ford-GM 10-speed transmission, for example.
Alternative representation for determining the transmission ratio
Contains only operands
With simple fractions of both central gears of a planetary gearset
Or with the value 1
As a basis
For reliable
And traceable
Determination of the torque conversion rate and efficiency
References
↑P. A. G. Lepelletier, Multispeed automatic transmission for automobile vehicles, U. S. patent no. 5106352 (1992)
↑Essam L. Esmail (2016-01-13). "Configuration design of ten-speed automatic transmissions with twelve-link three-DOF Lepelletier gear mechanism". Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology. 30: 211–220. doi:10.1007/s12206-015-1225-4.
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