A technique was developed for simulating the stiffness and strength of a transmission housing by reproducing the behavior of the housing contact surface. This technique uses non-linear modeling methods to reproduce bolt tightening, positioning with dowel pins, the behavior of contact surfaces with consideration to gasket material and the stiffness of inner parts such as the differential case. The predictive accuracy regarding behavior in an actual transmission increased greatly as a result, and the discrepancy with test results fell to 15% or better. This made it possible to conduct evaluations by simulating the housing stiffness and strength in bench torsion testing at the stage of design. Specialized pre- and postprocessing tools were also developed for widespread dissemination of this simulation technique among designers, shortening the calculation time and labor to the amount of one-third of what it had been.
Article of Honda R&D Technical Review Vol.14 No.2 (115 - 122)