Kinematic Analysis for Planetary Drive Mixer Systems

This paper discusses in brief about the effect of choice of gear ratios in planetary gearing in minimizing the uncovered or unswept area in the work envelope of agitators in a vertical change-can planetary mixer and the estimation of the unswept areas for various combination of gear pair ratios. It is also important to choose the number of teeth on sun and the planet gears such that the blade tip trace of the agitators will repeat its path only after as large number of revolutions as possible. Simulations are carried out to find out the optimum combinations of gear pair ratios resulting in minimum unswept region and attain better homogenization in tip trace in the shortest possible time.