OPTIMAL DESIGN OF CLUTCH PLATE BASED ON HEAT AND STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS USING CFD AND FEA

The energy transfer during the friction clutch operation is followed by dissipative process through convection at friction surface. To improve the performance of the friction clutch, it is important to analyze maximum temperature rise at the friction surface different design variants of grooves on the clutch plate were analyzed using CFD and FEA techniques to determine the optimum design which has good air flow around grooves and bears considerable amount of load which is imposed at the time of engagement. According to the results, a new clutch plate design is suggested, which has tapered groove geometry. The results shows improvement of the convection between air and friction surface in new design, resulting in reduced maximum temperature rise . The software ANSYS 18 and Starccm+ 12.0 are used for the numerical computation and analysis in this paper.