PERFORMANCE STUDIES OF CUSTOM CONTINUOUSLY VARIABLE TRANSMISSION FOR ALLTERRAIN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS

The off-road vehicles are a necessary in today’s world for rescuing operations, military, racing and farming applications creating a huge demand for the AllTerrain Vehicle in the automobile market. The market size is estimated to be worth about $ 9.2bn (₹594Cr) by 2020. The drive-train of an All-Terrain Vehicle(ATV) is one of the major component in propelling the vehicle. Continuously Variable Transmission(CVT) coupled to a constant reduction gearbox, provides ease of driveability and the required high torque and top speed. In case of an ATV, high torque and high-top speed is the requirement, since it should be able to negotiate various terrains such as bumps, hill-climb, etc. Several authors have discussed, methods in designing CVT components of commercial vehicles which run on tarmac, and only few researchers have discussed methods to develop a CVT for an ATV requiring high velocity and high torque. The aim is to develop a lightweight, compact CVT system with high torque and top speed without any compromise on reliability. The force balance method is used to develop the analytical model. This model is used to design the various components of the CVT operating with gear ratios between 4:1 to 0.7:1. The structural analysis of all the CVT components are carried out. The designed and fabricated CVT components were then assembled on the ATV and performance studies were done by testing in various terrain conditions such as bumps, drops, slush and pulling weight from zero speed. All the components performed well, with no failures in all these conditions