Sustainable performance of wet clutch systems

In industry today there are increasing demands not only on product performance, but also on environmental performance. In striving to develop high performance environmentally adapted products, optimization of product life is a central issue. The success of design optimization relies on an understanding of the degradation process and of the associated degradation mechanisms. A high level of costs is often associated with downtime of machinery caused by service and by replacement of machine components. Knowledge of ageing mechanisms facilitates evaluation of the remaining useful life, thus optimizing performance during the entire service life of components. In this study the ageing process of wet clutches has been investigated. Wet clutches are used in automatic transmissions and limited slip differentials in private vehicles and are designed to transfer torque. A wet clutch consists of a clutch pack submerged in lubricant. Separator and friction discs are alternately positioned in the clutch pack. The separator discs are connected to the input shaft and the friction discs are connected to the output shaft. When the clutch pack is pushed together friction is generated between the friction and separator discs. Torque transfer is thus created in the interface between contacting surfaces and torque transfer characteristics are determined by the interaction between lubricant and contacting surfaces. The investigations performed in this thesis have been designed to increase the understanding of wet clutch ageing and failure. Tests have been performed from full scale to model tests. Full scale testing describes the actual system which means that all significant degradation mechanisms are present. The disadvantage with full scale testing is that it is difficult to separate and isolate degradation mechanisms. In small scale model tests it is possible to isolate the degradation mechanisms and hence also what effects they have. Correlation of results from full scale to small scale can in turn increase the understanding of which degradation mechanisms are important for the system and how they influence the wet clutch system. The wet clutch lubricant and the contacting surfaces provide the friction characteristics of the clutch. Therefore, this work has focused on how lubricant degradation affects friction characteristics and hence wet clutch performance. Results in this study show that friction levels increase as lubricant degradation proceeds. In accelerated wet clutch test rig ageing, results in this study indicate that high temperatures in the interface between contacting surfaces greatly influence wet clutch degradation