Reliability for design of planetary gear drive units

Gear drive units are important components of technical systems (TS) and need to be of high quality. Planetary gear units are very compact and efficient mechanical power transformers, but further increase of operating quality level requires the application and development of the new design methodology. The subject of this contribution is presentation of Reliability for design as the new approach of reliability modelling suitable for the new design methodology application, especially for planetary gear units using various kinds of experimental and exploitation data. The methodology follows V-model for TS design which is in this work adapted for gear units design and for presentation of the new methodology based on property based design, axiomatic design and robust design methodology. To this end, the procedure for total reliability of TS decomposition, and methodology for elementary reliability for design of structure components calculation is developed and presented. The reliability for design is established in reverse form of reliability for maintenance which presents common perception of the “reliability” term. This approach is intended to provide further increase of planetary gear unit’s quality and efficient usability of gear unit component resources. The design directions are oriented to providing equal level of elementary reliability of components.