Manual transmission is one of the key system of power-train to which driver directly interacts, so its shift feeling is important for the merchantability. The importance of the gear shift quality of manual transmissions has increased significantly over the past few years as the refinement of other vehicle systems has increased and also due to rise in customer expectations.
Shift Tower is a system to assist the driver during selecting and shifting of Gears. The dynamic interaction of shift Tower at a component level is difficult to interpret by traditional test methods and virtually impossible at concept stage. To overcome these difficulties a dynamic model of the entire Shift Tower mechanism i.e. Shift select lever, 3D Ramp, Detent Pin, Spring, Interlock mechanism has been created. The model predicts the gearshift quality i.e. Shift and Select force values for a given set of input parameters, which can be correlated against test data. The model can then be used for parameter studies to investigate potential improvements to gearshift quality. The model can also be used at the concept stage to indicate suitable specification for Ramp design, Spring stiffness, Spring preload, mass, inertia, Joints and friction.
This paper will present experience of simulation of Shift Tower using this dynamic model in CAE (ADAMSTM) software, the structure of the model, methodology used and correlation with testing Results.
