• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.133-146
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• 2024

Selection of gear reduction ratio is essential for machine design to ensure suitable power and speed during agricultural operations. The goal of the study was to evaluate the gear reduction ratio for a 1.6 kW four-wheel-drive (4WD) multi-purpose agricultural electric vehicle platform using workload data under different off-road conditions. A data acquisition system was fabricated to collect workload (torque) of the vehicle acting on the gear shaft. Field tests were performed under three driving surfaces (asphalt, concrete, and grassland), payload operations (981, 2,942, and 4,903 N), and slope conditions (0 - 4°, 4 - 8°, and 8 - 12°), respectively. Commercial speed reduction gear phases were attached to the input shaft of the vehicle powertrain. The maximum required torque was recorded as 37.5 Nm at a 4,903 N load with 8 - 12° slope levels, and the minimum torque was 12.32 Nm at 0 - 4° slope levels with a 981 Nm load for a 4 km/h speed on asphalt, concrete, and grassland roads. Based on the operating load condition and motor torque and rotational speed (TN) curve, the minimum and maximum gear reduction ratios were chosen as 1 : 50 and 1 : 64, respectively. The selected motor satisfied power requirements by meeting all working torque criteria with the gear reduction ratios. The chosen motor with a gear reduction ratio of 1 : 50 was suitable to fit with the motor T-N curve, and produced the maximum speeds and loads needed for driving and off-road activities. The findings of the study would assist in choosing a suitable gear reduction ratio for electric vehicle multi-purpose field operations.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.77-83
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• 2020

4WD technology is being actively applied to passenger cars. Therefore, dry multi-plate clutches are used for transfer cases. On the other hand, dry clutches have problems related to large vibrations and poor ride quality. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a multi-plate clutch with an MR fluid. When fastening the multi-plate clutch in the transfer case, the proposed MR clutch was applied to reduce the shock and friction, which is a key component in a four-wheel-drive system. MR multi-plate clutch has a fluid coupling mode and a compression mode. A torque model equation was derived for the optimal design. The analysis was performed using Ansys Maxwell to optimize the design parameters of the multi-plate clutch. Electromagnetic field analysis confirmed the strength of the magnetic field when the number of disks and plates were changed, and the maximum strength of the magnetic field was 0.45 Tesla. By applying this to the torque equation, the spacing between the plates was 2 mm, and the inner and outer diameters of the plates were selected to be 45 mm and 55 mm, respectively. Overall, this paper proposes an optimal design technique to maximize the performance of an MR multi-plate clutch.