EMBODIMENT DESIGN OF NOVEL 5-SPEED REAR DRIVE HUBS FOR BICYCLES

Abstract

This paper presents embodiment design of 5-speed rear drive hubs for bicycles. A 7-link, 2-degrees of freedom (DOF) compound planetary gear train as the main body of a rear drive hub is introduced. The relationship between the number of coaxial links of a planetary gear train and the number of gear stages that a drive hub can provide with is discussed. By means of kinematic analysis, four speed ratios of the planetary gear train are derived, which represents four forward gears of the rear drive hub. By adding a direct-drive gear, five forward gears can be provided and two feasible clutching sequence tables are synthesized. Manual translational-type gear-shifting mechanisms are further designed to incorporate with the planetary gear train for appropriately controlling the gear stage. The power-flow path at each gear stage is checked to verify the feasibility of the proposed design. Finally, two novel 5-speed bicycle rear drive hubs are presented.