Planetary Gear Thrust Washer With Axial Rotation Locking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Thrust washers in planetary gear devices often experience unwanted rotational movement, leading to acoustic issues and wear, particularly when not properly secured against rotation, causing background noise and vibrations.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of an axially-engaging rotation protection mechanism using axial protrusions on the thrust washer, which engages positively or non-positively with the planetary carrier or gear housing, providing material-elastic biasing to secure the thrust washer and prevent unwanted rotation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a thrust washer is used without rotation protection, then the thrust washer can perform its basic function of supporting axial loads and enabling planet gear rotation, but unwanted rotational movement occurs causing acoustic emissions and wear
Solution Approach 1:
A rotation protection element is introduced as an intermediary component between the thrust washer and the planetary gear system. This element prevents unwanted rotation of the thrust washer while allowing it to perform its axial support function, thereby eliminating acoustic emissions and wear caused by uncontrolled rotational movement.
Solution Approach 2:
The thrust washer is designed with integrated rotation protection features that allow it to self-regulate its rotational movement. The thrust washer automatically prevents its own unwanted rotation through its structural design, eliminating the need for additional external protection mechanisms while maintaining its primary function.
2Reliability
If individual thrust washers are provided for each planet gear, then rotation control is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple individual thrust washers are merged into a single centralized thrust washer structure that serves all planet gears simultaneously. This unified design maintains effective rotation control for each planet gear while reducing the total number of components, thereby lowering device complexity without compromising reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
A single thrust washer is designed to perform multiple functions: it provides axial support for multiple planet gears and simultaneously controls rotation for each of them. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate thrust washers for each planet gear, reducing complexity while maintaining rotation control reliability.
3Device complexity
If a central thrust washer is used for all planet gears, then device complexity is reduced, but rotation protection becomes difficult to implement
Solution Approach 1:
The central thrust washer is segmented into multiple functional zones or regions, each corresponding to a specific planet gear. Rotation protection features are distributed across these segments, allowing each planet gear to have dedicated rotation control while sharing a common thrust washer structure. This maintains low device complexity while ensuring reliable rotation protection.
Solution Approach 2:
Rotation protection for the central thrust washer is implemented in a different dimensional approach - using axial or radial features rather than circumferential features. This allows a single central thrust washer to provide rotation protection for multiple planet gears by utilizing the third dimension (axial direction) rather than requiring separate circumferential elements for each gear.
Data Source
AI summary
A planetary gear device including an axially rotation-protected thrust washer is described herein. The planetary gear device includes gear components revolving around an axis of rotation, wherein the gear components include a planet gear, as well as a planetary carrier for the planet gear. The planetary gear device also includes a gear housing encasing the revolving gear components, a thrust washer supported around or at the axis of rotation, and a rotation protection, by means of which the thrust washer can be positioned so as to be rotation-protected. The rotation protection is an axially-engaging rotation protection, and the thrust washer is arranged such that the axially-engaging rotation protection is provided relative to the planetary carrier and/or relative to the gear housing by means of an axially-protruding protrusion at an interface between the thrust washer, the planetary carrier, and/or the gear housing.