Influence of the Thermal Parameters and the Structural Parameters on the Performance of Clutch Pressure Plate

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. For the above cases, in this paper, a new channel clutch pressure plate is proposed, and namely, the radial cooling channel and axial thermal through-hole are set in the traditional structure of the pressure plate. The design has won the authorization of national patent for utility models (A channel clutch pressure plate, ZL201510049547.5). To explore the performance of channel pressure plate and its influencing factors, this paper starts with the thermal parameters (including ambient temperature, convective heat transfer coefficient of pressure plate friction surface and non- abrasive surface, etc.) and structural parameters (including radial cooling channel width and height, and axial thermal through-hole diameter, etc.), making thermal-structure coupling analysis of the pressure plate, gaining influence law of the thermal parameters and structural parameters on the temperature field and deformation field. The results show that the thermal parameters have little effect on the working performance of the new pressure plate, and structural parameters have a greater impact on the thermal deformation amount of the new pressure plate. Compared to the original pressure plate program, the new pressure plate has significantly improved working performance.