Planetary gear mechanisms are widely used in automobile automatic transmissions. However, the relevant design theories are not well development, especially the synthesis of the clutching sequence. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop a systematical methodology for the design of automobile automatic transmissions. First, the specifications are established according to the characteristics of the automatic transmissions. Second, a procedure is created to list the speed ratio table and the clutching table for the planetary gear mechanisms. Third, based on the clutching table, a systematical method is developed to synthesize the clutching sequences. Then, the clutches and brakes are arranged into the planetary gear mechanisms to form the schematic of an automatic transmission. Finally, according to the relations between speed ratios and the numbers of teeth of gears, the gear-teeth synthesis is carried out when several certain speed ratios are assigned. A seven-link 2-DOF Ravigneaux gear mechanism, a eight-link 2-DOF Ravigneaux gear mechanism and a nine-link 2-DOF stepped Ravigneaux gear mechanism are as the design examples. And a four-speed, a six-speed and an eight-speed automatic transmissions are synthesized, respectively. The result of this study shows that the proposed methodology can be applied to design any 2-DOF planetary automatic transmissions.

An automatic transmission is a device that is connected to the back of an engine and sends the power from the engine to the drive wheels. Its job is to keep the engine within a certain angular velocity. Although there are many epicyclic-type automatic transmissions in production, the related configuration design methods are still tedious and prone to human error. A simple and analytic methodology needs to be developed. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to present an efficient methodology for the systematic design of the epicyclic gear transmissions for automobiles. First, fundamentals and gear-shifting operations of the four-speed, five-speed and six-speed epicyclic-type automatic transmissions are illustrated to establish the design requirements. Second, based on the kinematic equations of the fundamental geared entities and the corresponding basic gear ratios, a procedure is applied to execute the kinematic and mechanical-efficiency analyses for the automatic transmissions. Third, two simple clutching-sequence synthesis methods are proposed and illustrated. One is based on the speed ratio equations, and another is based on the lever diagram. Next, a planar-graph representation is presented to arrange the desired clutches for each possible clutching sequence into the epicyclic gear mechanism. Then, the number of teeth of each gear is synthesized from assigning two or three desired speed ratios by the analytic method. Finally, a computer-aided design program for the clutching-sequence synthesis is developed with the considerations of the design requirements. With the above methods, the systematic designs of the 204 epicylic gear mechanisms are given for demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed methodology. The result of this work shows that the seven-link two-DOF epicylic gear mechanisms, the eight-link two-DOF Ravigneaux gear mechanism, and the nine-link two-DOF parallel-connected epicylic gear mechanisms could reach four-, six-, and six-forward speeds at most, respectively.

¡@An automatic transmission that is a transmission device between the engine and drive wheel, offers the vehicle while increasing and decreasing the speed mainly. Its job keeps the engine within a certain working rotational speed range.¡@Although there are many epicyclic-type automatic transmissions in production, the related design methods of lever diagram is not well developed.¡@Thus, the purpose of this research is to develop a systematic design of the epicyclic gear transmissions for automobiles with lever diagrammatical methodology.¡@First, fundamentals and gear-shifting operations of the four-speed and six-speed epicyclic-type automatic transmissions are illustrated to establish the design requirements.¡@Second, based on the basic theories of lever diagram, a procedure is applied to kinematic analysis for automatic transmission existed, and set up composite lever diagrams of 13 two-DOF seven-link epicyclic gear mechanisms and 190 two-DOF nine-link epicyclic gear mechanisms.¡@Next, a general clutching-sequence synthesis of lever diagrammatical method are proposed and illustrated. According to the limit range of lever dimensions established for four and five coaxial components, the clutching-sequences and the ranges of basic gear ratio of the feasible gear trains can be derived.¡@Finally, the planar-graph representation for arranging desired clutch and the number of teeth based on lever dimensions are applied to design six-forward speeds automatic transmission. The result of this work shows that the seven-link two-DOF epicylic gear mechanisms, and the nine-link two-DOF parallel-connected epicylic gear mechanisms could reach four- and six-forward speeds at most, respectively.