Computational Study on Flow through a Torque Converter

The computation of the Navier-Stokes equations through the three torque converter components (i.e., the pump, the turbine and the stator) is shown. A third-order-upwind scheme is used in the computation. The flow in each component is first calculated individually. Then, the calculation results for each outlet condition are used as the inlet condition of the next component, and the flow in each component is calculated again. This iterative procedure is terminated when the loss of flow pressure in the three components reaches a steady state. The torque converter performance predicted with this method agrees well with experimental data.