Abstract. The clutch pressure plate was easy to produce high temperature and axial thermal deformation under the extreme operation conditions, which results in clutch ablation, torque transmission capacity /slip faults. In this paper, a new channel clutch pressure plate was proposed that set a radial cooling channels and axial cooling through holes on the traditional pressure plates. Based on the finite element modeling and analysis of the new pressure plate, the influence of the thermal parameters (such as ambient temperature, convective heat transfer coefficient of the friction surface and the non-friction surfaces) and structural parameters (such as the width and height of the radial cooling channels, the diameter of the axial cooling through holes, etc.) on the temperature field and deformation field of new pressure plate were obtained. The results show that the effect of the thermal parameters on the performance of the new pressure plate was not obvious, but the influence of the structural parameters on the thermal deformation of the new pressure plate was significant. Compared to the performance of the original pressure plate, the performance of the new scheme has been improved significantly.
The common dry clutch pressure plate was prone to produce high temperature and axial thermal deformation due to the frictional heat generated during engagement. The overheated and overdeformed pressure plate decreases the torque transmission capacity of the clutch system and causes some kind of clutch malfunction including clutch slip and fracture. In this paper, the clutch pressure plate was firstly optimized by the topological optimization. Inspired by the topological optimized result, an improved design of the pressure plate was brought out, where the specific radial cooling channels and axial cooling holes were introduced in the new improved design in order to improve heat transfer and reduce the mass and thermal deformation as well. The performance of the new improved design is simulated and further optimized by the FE method. It is indicated that the mass of the optimum pressure plate was greatly reduced from the original design, with a mass reduction of 3.1 kg. The axial thermal deformation is also significantly decreased from the original pressure plate, decreasing from the original 0.35mm to the present 0.28mm while keeping the maximum temperature of pressure plate unchanged. These comparisons show that thermal-mechanical performance of the new pressure plate is improved effectively.
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