Period: 2018 – 2022

Improvements in fuel economy and reductions in greenhouse gasses are common issues which drive the development of new technologies. Vehicle transmissions are vital components because their design directly impacts the engine operation and the power flow to the powertrain. As the focus, energy consumption in transmissions is analyzed in this project. The causes are not just the elements in the power flow path, but also the commonly used auxiliary systems. Based on the project “Modelling and analyzing the power losses in vehicle transmissions”, the energy consumption in the launch element, the hydraulic system and the open shift element is modeled. In order to accurately predict the total energy consumption, all important uncertain parameters are firstly determined by means of the parameter study. To identify these uncertain parameters in models, the isolated measurement for the individual energy consumption in the whole transmission system is conducted. For this, the experiments are designed by modifying the modules in the transmission and by intelligently operating the conditions. The validation of the models improved by parameter identification is carried out with the measurement data from other operational conditions.

The overall target of this project is to build the model of energy consumption which can be used to compare different vehicle transmissions in terms of total energy consumption.

Contact: Zhihong Liu

Selected publications: Theoretical and Experimental Investigation on Power Loss of Vehicle Transmission Synchronizers with Spray Lubrication