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The friction clutch is an important machine part in the torque transmission system, where it is responsible for gently transmitting the power from the engine to the gearbox and damping the tensional vibration. At the beginning of the engagement between the clutch’s elements, a large amount of heat is released due to frictional sliding between the elements of the clutch system, generating very high temperatures. In this work, the two- and three-dimensional finite element models were developed from scratch to explore the clutch disk’s temperature and contact pressure behaviors using an alternative frictional material such as functionally graded material (FGM). The two assumptions for the thermal loads were considered: uniform wear and uniform pressure assumptions. The thermal–structural problem for the new frictional material was solved numerically and then presented as the temperature distributions and the contact pressure at any instant of sliding time. Also, a comparison was made between the clutch system behaviors when using FGM with different frictional materials. The results showed that the FGM has superior results to the other available frictional materials.

The friction clutch design strongly depends upon the frictional heat generated between contact surfaces during slipping at the beginning of the engagement. Firstly, the frictional heat generated reduces the performance of the clutch system and then leads to premature failure for contacting surfaces in some cases. The experimental effort in this work included manufacturing friction facing from functionally graded material (FGM) (aluminum and silicon carbide) for the clutch system. For this purpose, a special test rig was developed to investigate the thermal behavior of FGM and compare it with other frictional materials. The Taguchi L9 orthogonal design was selected to analyze the effect of the three factors (rotational, speed, torque, and the type of the frictional material) with three levels on the surface temperature of the contacting surfaces. A three-dimensional finite element model was built to validate the experimental results where the difference between them did not exceed 5.2%. The experimental results showed that the temperatures grew with the disc radius. Furthermore, the surfaces of the pressure plates and the flywheel were affected by frictional heat flow, and this effect increased when increasing the sliding speed. The lowest temperatures occurred when using FGM, which was lower than the other materials by 10%. This study presented an integrated approach consisting of design, manufacturing, and testing to study the complex frictional materials' effect on the clutch system's tribological performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The friction clutch is considered a very important element of machines, as it plays a major role in transferring power from the driving part to the driven part. A common application of the friction clutch is in vehicles to connect between the gearbox and the engine. Fast wear occurs as a result of frictional heating that is generated when the clutch is starting to engage. This wear, in addition to the high thermal stresses, will lead to premature failure in the contacting surfaces. The present review highlights the most important studies of the thermal and thermoelastic problems of friction clutches during the last 10 years to show the challenges that were overcome and also the other challenges that needed to find solutions. The present paper will discuss in detail the influence of the frictional heat generated between contact surfaces during slipping and the main factors affecting the thermal behavior of dry friction clutches, such as sliding speed, friction materials, applied pressure, and so on. Furthermore, significant conclusions and remarks based on the available solutions to the thermal problem of the clutch are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]