A New Unique Approach to Predict the Usable Clutch Life on Utility Vehicles for Driving Conditions Similar to that of Indian Subcontinent

To ensure a robust, reliable and durable product, predicting the useful life of aggregates at the concept stage is a very important aspect in the any product design. This requirement is very much necessary in today’s competitive environment, wherein the customer expectations are increasing and development time for reliable product is shrinking. Clutch is one of the important aggregate in an automobile having manual transmission. It acts like a fuse in the driveline system wherein its wear and tear cannot be avoidable. The performance of Clutch is correlated with its useful life. In this paper, a unique methodology is formulated for the prediction of beta life of clutch. Actual field data of over 3 to 4 years related with warranty claims, mode of failures, usage kilometers etc. has been collected on a typical utility vehicle platform which has been operating on roads of Indian subcontinent. By analyzing the warranty and supplementary data for a given vehicle configuration, relation between the beta life and vehicle parameters influencing the wear and tear of clutch like heat stress has been formulated. This approach can be used as a design guideline to predict the usable clutch life in the design stage with a fair amount of reliability for driving conditions similar to that of Indian subcontinent.