Investigation of thermoelastic behaviour of the dry clutches under different boundary conditions

The high thermal stresses, generated between the contacting surfaces of theclutch system (pressure plate, clutch disc and flywheel) due to the frictional heatingduring the slipping, are considered to be one of the main reasons of clutchfailure. A finite element technique has been used to study the transient thermoelasticphenomena of a dry clutch. The effect of the boundary conditions on thecontact pressure distribution, the temperature field and the heat flux generatedalong the frictional surfaces are investigated. Analysis has been completed usingtwo-dimensional axisymmetric model that was used to simulate the clutch elements.ANSYS software has been used to perform the numerical calculation inthis paper.