Design Optimization of Automotive Lock-up Clutches with Damper Springs Using Simulated Annealing, FEM, and B-spline Curves

Abstract

An efficient optimum design process has been developed and applied to systematically design a lock-up clutch system for a torque converter used in an automatic transmission. A simulated annealing algorithm was applied to determine the parameters of the compressive helical damper springs in the clutch. The determination of the number, location, a number of turns, and deflection of damper springs plays an important role in reducing vibration and noise in the lock-up system. Next, FE-based shape optimization was coded to find the shape of the clutch disk that would satisfy the strength, noise and vibration requirements. Using the optimum code, parametric studies were performed to see how spring diameters and frequencies of clutch systems changed as the damper spring traveling angles and the torques were varied. Based on the optimum results, five different designs for clutches with different springs were fabricated and vibration analyses and tests were conducted to validate the accuracy of the proposed method. Results from the two methods show a good correlation.