Developing Additive Technology for Wet Dual Clutch Transmissions

Wet dual clutch transmissions(W-DCTs) show overall benefits including excellent fuel efficiency,wide torque capacity range,long durability,driving comfort and sportiness.Many breakthroughs have been made to further improve the fuel efficiency by design innovations and introductions of new hardware.Each W-DCT has its unique design and hardware.It demands the lubricant to provide excellent wet clutch friction performance and anti-shudder friction durability,good synchronizer friction performance and durability,high load-carrying ability,excellent bearing performance,strong anti-corrosion performance,high thermal and oxidative stability,excellent material compatibility,etc.Particularly,the requirement of the wet clutch friction performance in W-DCT is much more severe than conventional ATFs and CVTFs.We report here our latest W-DCTF technologies developed for different W-DCT applications.DCTF-1 was optimized for a two-sump W-DCT application with the clutch lining material of friction material A(FM-A).DCTF-1 shows high and stable dynamic friction,static friction,particularly,high quasi-static friction without any shudder tendency in GK tests.DCTF-2 was designed for a one-sump W-DCT application with the same clutch lining material of FM-A.DCTF-2 completes 42,000 cycles of the severe GTI chassis dynamometer vehicle test without any issues,which is comparable to the factory fill fluid DCTF-FF.DCTF-3 was developed for a one-sump W-DCT application with a different clutch lining material of FM-B.DCTF-3 shows high and stable dynamic friction in the severe newly developed SAE DCT test procedure.DCTF-3 also gives excellent LVFA durability of over 720 h in the JASO M349 test procedure on FM-B.