Investigating the Fatique Strength of Commercial-Vehicle Clutches

The torsional damper of a vehicle's clutch is, as part of the drive train, subjected to various dynamic loads. Increasing torques and spatial limitations call for lightweight construction. The design of these components is now increasingly being influenced by the need to consider them from an fatigue strength standpoint. A new testing concept which aims at providing evidence of fatigue strength is introduced here, taking commercial vehicle clutch disks as an example, and touching upon the areas of analysis and evaluation of the load collective characteristic and of control systems for servo-hydraulic test rigs.