Influence of Charging Oil Condition on Torque Converter Cavitation Characteristics

Abstract Cavitation inside a torque converter induces noise, vibration and even failure, and these effects have been disregarded in previous torque converter design processes. However, modern torque converter applications require attention to this issue because of its high-speed and high-capacity requirements. Therefore, this study investigated the cavitation effect on a torque converter using both numerical and experimental methods with an emphasis on the influence of the charging oil feed location and charge pressure. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models were established to simulate the transient cavitation behaviour in the torque converter using different charging oil pressures and inlet arrangements and testing against a base case to validate the results. The CFD results suggested that cavitating bubbles mainly takes place in the stator of the torque converter. The transient cavitation CFD model yielded good agreement with the experimental data, with an error of 7.6% in the capacity constant and 7.4% in the torque ratio. Both the experimental and numerical studies showed that cavitation induced severe capacity degradation, and that the charge pressure and charging oil configuration significantly affects both the overall hydrodynamic performance and the fluid behaviour inside the torque converter because of cavitation. Increasing the charge pressure and charging the oil from the turbine-stator clearance were found to suppress cavitation development and reduce performance degradation, especially in terms of the capacity constant. This study revealed the fluid field mechanism behind the influence of charging oil conditions on torque converter cavitation behaviour, providing practical guidelines for suppressing cavitation in torque converter.