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A new five-speed automatic transaxle, U150E, has been developed for FWD passenger cars. The goals of the development of this transaxle are fuel economy improvement, better acceleration performance, and a smoother shift feel. U150E achieved its targets by adopting a wide gearing range and using hydraulic control system design based on various simulations. This paper describes the major features, performance of this automatic transaxle, and technical points of the development.

A new compact five-speed automatic transmission (A650E) has been developed for front engine rear wheel drive cars. The development of this transmission has been aimed at improving fuel consumption, power performance, engine noise reduction during highway cruising and smooth acceleration by employing a wide range of gearing and close gear ratios. Generally a five-speed automatic transmission is larger than a four-speed, because of additional friction elements and gears. This can result in a change in the floor panel of the car body. However, by removing a one-way clutch for second gear and employing a unique gear-train layout, this transmission has the same circumference and length as the conventional four-speed automatic transmission (A340E)(1).1 In order to reduce first or second gear noise, gear specification and supporting structures of planetary gears have been optimized by FEM analysis.

Reducing loss torque in automatic transmissions (ATs) is a key factor in improving fuel economy. A promising approach is to reduce the viscosity of the Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) so as to minimize churning loss. Aisin AW and JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation have developed a super low viscosity ATF, called “AW-2”, which has approximately 50% lower kinematic viscosity at 40 °C compared to the conventional ATF “AW-1”. It is generally understood that if the viscosity of an ATF is too low, it can have a negative impact on the fatigue life of components such as gears and bearings, and possibly lead to increased wear or seizure. AW-2 was designed to solve these problems via the application of two key technologies. The first is a high performance base oil with a low traction coefficient, which translates to low viscosity under high pressure conditions.

The method that enables a Simulink model to execute parallel computation by using GPGPU technology is introduced. The GPGPU, General-purpose computing on graphics processing units, is a technology to accelerate program by using graphic card instead of CPU computation. This method was developed to reduce the time to detect failure mode of automatic transmission’s valve body. The valve body is the major part of automatic transmission. It is extremely important to confirm the functional safety of automatic transmission in the case that any parts of valve body failed. We have developed Simulink-based valve body failure mode simulator, and made a considerable contribution for this work. However, the number of failure mode is increasing recently. Therefore, we made the simulator to compute at a high-speed using GPGPU technology. We have sharply reduced the computation time and strengthened the computing ability to support the detection for an increasing amount of failure modes.

Environmental improvement is moving forward, due in part to the reduction of fuel consumption of automatic transmission(AT) vehicles as a result of social requirements in recent years and many measures have been implemented. Adoption of idling stop is a typical example introduced to reduce energy consumption while the vehicle is stopped to improve the urban environment. However, there are problems such as responsiveness and smoothness for an AT vehicle when the engine is stopped with the shift selector in “D” range. To overcome these problems, a new start clutch control system has been developed using an electric oil pump installed in a simple hybrid vehicle called a mild hybrid. As a result, a smooth feeling starting performance is achieved by operating the system in combination with the engine and other systems.