Toroidal Continuously Variable Transmission Systems: Terminology and Present Studies

Abstract

The use of continuously variable transmission systems in many different areas such as aerospace, robotics, machinery and automotive industries as an alternative to conventional speed changers with constant ratio becomes widely.Especially in the automotive industry, these systems have been used increasingly, since they enable that internal combustion engines in vehicles run at optimal speeds, and consequently provide considerable fuel savings and therefore lower emission values and also they provide powerful acceleration and quiet working. CVT systems have several constructive variants such as belted, chained, balled, toroidal etc. In this paper, toroidal CVT systems based on elastohydrodynamic principles are concerned with, and fundamental works of last two decades in this field are reviewed. However, the relevant terminology and dynamics along with the control of these systems are briefly treated for better understanding of the literature mentioned. Attention is drawn to the lack of some significant issues in present research works, and potential future works are pointed out. This paper, to the authors’ knowledge, will be the first review on toroidal CVT systems in Turkish literature

Keywords

• Continuously Variable Transmission, CVT, Toroidal CVT, Traction Drive CVT