Thermal characteristics of a wet clutch

A comprehensive formulation of the governing equations, boundary conditions, and numerical solution technique is presented for modeling the thermal aspects of the engagement process in a wet clutch. The thermal model includes full consideration of the viscous heat dissipation in the fluid as well as heat transfer into the separator friction material, and the core disk. Roughness, waviness, deformability and permeability of the friction material are taken into account. It is shown that very large temperatures develop in the fluid during the engagement process which takes place on the time scale of one second. It is also shown that thermal effects influence the engagement time and the torque behavior of a clutch and should be included in the analytical studies.