Application of Grey-Taguchi Method Optimizes the Structural Friction Clutch Disc

In which the clutch disc is the part that is heavily influenced by the pressure disc and engine flywheel.Therefore, the design of the clutch disc faces many difficulties.In this investigation, the model of the clutch disc with design variables and their level was built in SolidWorks.In which, variable A is the friction disc thickness with 3 levels of 3mm, 3.3mm, 3.5mm and B is the diameter of the friction disc groove with levels of 0.25mm, 0.5mm, 0.75mm and variable C is the diameter rivet hole with grades 2.75mm, 3mm, 3.25mm finally D is the young's modulus of the materials for all the part of the clutch are aluminum of 70GPa, copper of 128GPa and structural steel of 200GPa, respectively.The deformation and the equivalent stress were estimated by finite element analysis (FEM) in ANSYS.The simulation data of the study are used to minimize the deformation and stress of the clutch disc by grey relation analysis based on Taguchi method.The results of the FEM indicated that the input variables had a significant influence on the deformation and stress of the clutch disc.Then, the above results were verified by signal to noise (S/N) analysis, analysis of means, analysis of variance, regression analysis, and plot surface.All are in agreement with the error of the predicted value and the optimal value of the grey relational grade is 1.69%.The optimal value of the deformation and stress are 0.033115mm and 66.889MPa, respectively.This proves that these results are very reliable.Therefore, the proposed method is very effective in optimizing the structure of mechanical products.