Toroidal variator with hydro-gas pressure mechanism for creating a holddown

Abstract

Abstract The article presents an analysis of the existing constructions of automatic shift gearboxes (automatic transmissions) in modern cars and describes a new construction based on a toroidal variator with a hydraulically variable holddown. There is a rationale that in comparison with the traditional automatic transmissions, a new one has smaller mass- dimensions with the same possibilities of transmitting smoothly variable torque from the engine to the car wheels. The innovation of the construction consists in the mechanism for pressing the intermediate disk of the variator to the friction surfaces due to the controlled hydraulic actuator and a membrane that eliminates bulky pressing linkage in a traditional construction of the toroidal variators.