Effect of Viscosity-Temperature Characteristics on the Behavior of Hydro-Viscous Drive

Abstract

The object of this work is to investigate the effect of temperature rise resulting from rotary speed difference between driving and driven plates on the performance of hydro-viscous drive.A simplified mathematic model of the steady and laminar flow between two flat plates was established with consideration of viscosity-temperature characteristics.The numerical solution of temperature,shearing stress and viscous torque were obtained by using computational fluid dynamics(CFD) code FLUENT.Then,an experiment rig was designed and developed for this work.The numerical and experimental results show that the relationship between output viscous torque and output rotary speed is nonlinear because of viscosity-temperature characteristics.It also indicates that viscous torque increases as input flow rate increases,and the magnitude of viscous torque increment is significant when the output rotary speed is low.This research provides a theoretical foundation for the optimization of the performance of hydro-viscous drive.