Multiobjective Pareto Optimal Design of a Clutch System

Abstract

Optimum design of a clutch and dual mass flywheel system is completed. Although the clutch systems are exposed to both rotational and axial vibrations, they are generally designed by considering rotational vibrations of engines and they do not have any component to damp axial vibrations due to the following two reasons: first, the package area of the clutch system is very limited and there is no available space to put additional springs and dampers to reduce these vibrations. Second, axial vibrations are normally insignificant to be considered in the analyses and such vibrations are supposed to be damped by the diaphragm spring and cushion springs. Nonetheless, axial vibrations may lead to some unexpected problems in the power train such as the rattle noise that is examined in this study by using global optimization techniques. The components in the clutch system are modeled analytically. Then, by considering the pedal characteristics and vibrations of pressure plate as objective functions, a multi-objective Pareto optimization problem is solved. It is shown that analytical models agree well with the experimental measurements and vibrations in the clutch system can be reduced significantly by choosing the design parameters with optimization tools.