Effect of Stator Shape on the Performance of Torque Converter

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Egyptian Armed Forces, Egypt.

Abstract

Torque converter is an enclosed hydrodynamic turbomachine, used in vehicles for smooth transmission of power and speed change from the engine to the transmission and torque multiplication. Torque converter consists of three major components: a pump that is connected to the engine shaft, a turbine connected to the transmission shaft, and a stator connected to transmission housing through a one-way clutch. Stator blades provide a guiding for the fluid flow. Stator is a main factor in controlling the torque ratio, pressure distribution and coupling point speed ratio. In this paper, the effects of the stator blade shape on overall performance have been investigated numerically at different speed ratios, using commercial software, ANSYS-CFX. Two torque converters with two different stator blade shapes are used for this study. The first stator has a large round nose, while the second stator is a thinner blade stator. At high speed ratio there is more blockage to flow of large inlet radius stator. Results showed that torque converter with thin blade resulted in an increase of torque ratio at fixed turbine and maximum efficiency. The bending of the thin blade caused a blockage to fluid flow.

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