A torque converter, equipped between engine and transmission, is a complex turbo-machine to transfer power from engine to transmission by means of interaction of moving fluid and blade cascades. A torque converter is widely used in vehicle transmissions and industrial power transmissions because of its outstanding automatic torque amplification, good acceleration performance and absorption of excessive vibration.
The design of blade cascades is the kernel part of a torque converter design. The blade cascades consist of complex surfaces and 3D curves, so it is very difficult to design and optimize them. There are two parts in the design of blade cascades: modeling of blade surface and its performance evaluation based on CFD analysis.
Kim Myong Hak, a researcher at the Robotics Institute, has proposed a practical torque converter design approach based on CFD analysis.
First, he built a 3D model of torque converter blades by ANSYS BladeGen and predicted their performance by CFD simulations. Second, he modeled the angle and thickness distribution curves at the core and shell of blades by Bezier curves, and improved the performance of the torque converter by controlling the control point of Bezier curves based on CFD simulation results. As a result, he established the methodology for designing torque converters with the required performance saving computation time and costs.
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