Abstract
Whilst full-toroidal traction drives (IVT and TCVT) have demonstrated the ability to provide significant fuel economy, emissions and cost benefits across a wide range of applications, increased emphasis is now being placed on power density. Increased power density places increased demands on the variator elements and traction fluid to withstand the heavily loaded rolling contact conditions and the corresponding contact temperature increase. In this paper, the ability of the full-toroidal traction drive to meet the accelerated durability testing requirements of 50,000km at max vehicle speed is experimentally investigated, demonstrating traction fluid 'fill for life' and excellent high temperature durability of the variator disc and roller material. In addition, a rigid-perfectly plastic traction model is compared to the measured roller metal temperature data and used to calculate the metal and fluid contact flash temperature.
