NUMERICAL ANALYSIS PROCEDURE FOR PREDICTING TEMPERATURE FIELD IN DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRICTION CLUTCH

摘要

In design of the friction clutches of automobiles, knowledge on the thermo-elasticity a priori is very informative in the initial design stage. Especially, the precise prediction technique of maximum temperature and stress should be requested in design of mechanical clutches for their durability and compactness. In this study, an efficient and reliable analysis technique for the design of the mechanical clutches by using computer modeling and numerical method was developed. A commercial software STAR-CD was used to find the convective heat-transfer coefficients. MSC/NASTRAN software was followed to predict the temperature of clutch with utilization of estimated coefficients. Some experiments were also performed with a dynamometer to verify the procedure and calibrate the thermal load. As a conclusion, a design procedure, including numerical steps and experimental techniques for calibration, was proposed.