New generation of automatic transmission system

 

Together with European and Chinese partners, Shengrui Transmission Corporate Limited from China, developer of spare parts and components for diesel engines and heavy-duty automobile successfully developed a new front wheel drive 8AT transmission. By signing a contract in June 2009, Ricardo UK, leading engineering provider of technology, product innovation and strategic consulting, became the development partner for this ‘industry-first’ product. A first concept of the 8AT Transmission including prototype design, simulation results and operating strategy was proposed by Professor Peter Tenberge, director and chair of machine elements in the faculty of mechanical engineering at Chemnitz University, Germany and respected expert in the field of transmission.

 

The 8AT includes a unique combination of epicyclic and parallel axis gearing, in which three simple planetary gears are used together with a single brake and four clutch units. Only seven months after Ricardo had joined the project-team a first prototype went through its baptism of fire in February 2010. In April 2010 the first vehicle with the 8AT has been presented at the Beijing Motor Show.

 

“In the development of the new 8AT transmission, SimulationX has been used as modeling, simulation and analysis platform intensively in Europe and China. Based on SimulationX models we were able to predict the behavior of the complete hydraulic system for lubrication, cooling and shifting as well as the interaction between the hydraulical and the mechanical subsystems” refers Professor Tenberge and Professor Xiangyang Xu, deputy dean of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University said “With the help of simulation, we can model each hydraulic elements such as valves, solenoids, and then each subsystems such as shifting control subsystem, cooling and lubrication subsystem, torque converter control subsystem, and integrate subsystem to whole electro-hydraulic system and vehicle to predict the shift quality and performance, this can significantly shorten development time and improve development quality”.

 

”SimulationX gave us the ability to rapidly validate valve designs, predicting performance and generating results comparable to real test data”, adds Lloyd Storey from Ricardo UK Ltd.