Design of a passively adaptive continuously variable transmission

Abstract

For limited powered actuators, there is a trade-off between speed and torque. In some cases, the need is for only speed or torque, but it may change during the operation. A CVT can meet the changing need by smoothly varying its gear ratio without stopping the motion. Since this need has a correlation with the load, a passively adaptive CVT is proposed to meet the need robustly without a sensor to measure the need and an additional actuator to change the gear ratio according to it. The gear ratio changes mechanically with the changing load so that keeps the motor torque unaffected by load variations. By doing so, it is aimed to increase the actuator performance in terms of speed or torque depending on the need. In this study, we will compare conventional CVTs, investigate load sensitive CVTs, explain the proposed design and finally, provide the results.