Effective utilizing axial nonlinear characteristics of diaphragm spring and waveform plate to enhance breakaway performances of a clutch

Abstract For general-purpose passenger cars with a manual transmission, breakaway performances of a clutch have great effects on ride of clutch operation system. Breakaway performances of a clutch is defined as force versus displacement applied at clutch fingers, and it is nonlinear decided by nonlinear characteristics of diaphragm spring and waveform plate. The relationship between characteristics of clutch breakaway and the ride of clutch operation system is investigated in this paper. A finite element (FE) model is proposed and used to estimate characteristics of clutch breakaway, and the calculated results are compared with experiments and these obtained by simple analytical method that deformation of a diaphragm spring is ignored. In the FE model, the nonlinear characteristics of diaphragm spring and waveform plate at axis direction are included. The influence of nonlinear characteristics of waveform plate and diaphragm spring on clutch breakaway is analyzed using the proposed model and the method for how to utilize nonlinear characteristics of diaphragm spring and waveform plate to enhance breakaway performances of a clutch is proposed. An example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed in the paper.