Design and Analysis of a New Electrically Controllable Brushless Eddy-Current Clutch

Abstract

This paper investigates the design and analysis of a new structure for eddy-current clutches, which can electrically control the torque transmission and gradual engagement through a brushless and dc supplied internal coil. As a highly controllable, robust, low cost and with no wearable parts, the suggested clutch system is applicable to seamless automated manual transmissions for both electric and hybrid vehicles. Besides, since torque is transmitted magnetically, there is no contact, so no wear occurs to any of the torque transferring components, providing for extremely long life. The design steps, which are followed by electromagnetic calculations as well as design optimization in MATLAB are discussed in detail. Finally, the validity of the results is verified through simulating in a 3D Finite-Element software (JMAG-Designer16.0).