EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON MISALIGNMENT EFFECT ON HYDRODYNAMIC TRANSMISSION PERFORMANCE

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant, Dpt. of Mechanical Equipment, Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt.

2 Professor, Dot. of Mechanical Power, Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt.

3 Professor, Dpt. of A/CM , Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

The fluid coupling represents a form of fluid connectors that transmits the power by oil circulation through it, fluid coupling is one version of an integrated hydrodynamic drive. The performance of fluid coupling is affected by many sources of vibration; one of vibration sources, is the misalignment between the input and output shafts of the fluid coupling. Assembling misalignment, usually results to a non uniform clearance distribution between pump and turbine stages of fluid coupling. This causes unsymmetric fluid forces on both stages; leading to fluid induced vibration. The amplitude of vibration may be greater than the allowable clearance between pump and turbine stages, that may cause solid contact between the stages and may provoke the mechanical failure of the transmission. This phenomenon of induced vibration, due to shafts misalignment of a fluid coupling has been investigated experimentally. The coupling stage was simulated by a rotating disk subjected to non-uniform jet forces applied on its rim. The results showed that; the higher the misalignment angle, the higher the vibration amplitude effect on the transmission performance. The effect of misalignment on the transmission performance increases at heavy duty loading. At the same misalignment angle; the higher the load, the higher the vibration amplitude effect on the transmission performance.

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