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Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Campus Access Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Advisor 1

Darrell Robinette

Committee Member 1

Jason Blough

Committee Member 2

Edward De Jesús Rivera

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to develop a two-way Fluid-Structure Interaction simulation of a two path torque converter to predict the flow field inside the torque converter and the torque capacity of the torque converter clutch during a pseudo transient maneuver of engagement of clutch from SR 0.81 to 0.99. The pressure data of the CFD simulation is correlated with the telemetry measured data of the instrumented torque converter. The torque data and the net apply force for clutch engagement was correlated with the results of Amesim model. The torque converter model was developed using the geometry of the original torque converter modified to suit the meshing and simulation requirements. The clutch assembly was added to the simulation and solved by transient structural module. After making sure that both the modules solve the simulations successfully, a system coupling module was used to share the data between the modules. It was necessary to find out the torque split between the fluid and mechanical clutch assembly, so Amesim lumped parameter model was developed to predict this torque split. Based on the output of Amesim model the boundary conditions for the Fluent and transient structural model were updated to get the correct torque capacity of the clutch. The maximum error in pressure and torque correlation is 55.8% and 18.5% respectively.

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