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MTM (Mini Traction Machine)
/ Applications
Determination of Traction Coefficients for Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVT)
The potential fuel economy benefits from the use of CVTs are considerable as the transmission will allow the engine to run at its most efficient speed irrespective of road speed. Unfortunately this benefit is often offset by low efficiency of the CVT and poor endurance of the contacting elements in the CVT. The latest generation advanced CVTs show great promise but the overall performance is still limited by the traction fluid. The fluid transmits the power between the machine elements of the CVT and is therefore critical to the efficiency and durability of the transmission. The ideal fluid will maintain a high traction coefficient at low slide/roll ratios over temperatures ranging from ambient to 150°C and afford good fatigue and scuffing resistance to the contacting surfaces.
The MTM system provides a rapid way of evaluating the performance of new
formulations of traction fluids at the development stage. The measurements
plotted above for one of the established traction fluids, Santotrac 40, were
made in under 40 minutes, with no operator intervention.
Because the user defines their own parameters for each test profile which will
then be repeated exactly in all subsequent tests using that profile, very accurate
and reliable comparisons can be made between the performance of different samples.
