Title: A numerical study of a torque converter with various methods for the accuracy improvement of performance prediction

Authors: Jae Hyuk Jung, Seongwon Kang, Nahmkeon Hur

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea

Abstract: A comparative study was carried out on numerical methods for simulating a flow inside a torque converter. To investigate the effect of different methods for handling the relative motion of the parts, three methods were considered – the frozen rotor, sliding mesh and mixing plane methods. To improve the accuracy of performance prediction, the influence of viscosity variation with the temperature was studied by a thermo-fluid analysis. From parametric studies on the numerical scheme and the mesh resolution, it is observed that the results with the frozen rotor and sliding mesh methods agree well with the experimental data, whereas the mixing plane method induces a larger difference. The effect of viscosity variation on the accuracy of simulation is also investigated.

Keywords: torque converters; performance prediction; thermo-fluid analysis; capacity factors; CFD; computational fluid dynamics; flow simulation; frozen rotor; sliding mesh; mixing plane; viscosity variation; temperature.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2011.041027

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2011 Vol.11 No.3/4, pp.261 - 268

Published online: 28 Jun 2011 *

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