Necessity of damper for Hydrostatic Transmission (HST) Tractors

In a modern world, the tractor customer demands are increasing for more comfortable, new technology, fuel efficient and quieter vehicle. The customer’s expectation for NVH refinement often challenges the limitations for tractor designs. For smaller tractors Hydrostatic Transmission (HST) is need due to higher demand for fuel efficiency, lightweight powertrain, and the operation will become easy in the field. With the Hydrostatic Transmission (HST) tractor without damper, there is a technical challenge like withstanding of the sudden impacts from the implements which are connected to PTO during field operations. The NVH behavior in driveline is critical phenomena which can cause the discomfort to end users and structural failure of driveline parts. During gear engagement due to sudden variation in torque the driveline parts are tends to clash each other because of lashes which will create high level of angular acceleration and noise. Practical measurement study has been done to identify the source higher acceleration / noise. Based on the past study with conventional damper. The various clutch disc pre-damper stiffness is used to see the effect of noise and angular acceleration. As expected, the change of damper stiffness gives the reduction in angular acceleration and noise intensity.