Abstract
In order to improve vehicle fuel economy, it is desirable to improve the response of the lockup clutch incorporated in a torque converter. To date, R&D efforts toward that end have relied on experiments and empirical judgments. This paper presents the details of an analysis in which computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software was used to make clear the mechanism involved in the response of the lock-up clutch in relation to the internal flow through the torque converter.