Design of a Friction Clutch Using Dual Belleville Structures

This paper presents a simplified friction clutch design, which consists of the dual Belleville spring and the friction plates. This design exploits the preset angle on the Belleville spring to increase the friction area during operation; thus, the load on spring is reduced at a given transmitted torque. Due to the increasing of friction area, the Belleville spring can also act as a friction plate, and the components required for the clutch can be reduced. The maximum transmittable torque of the clutch is easily adjusted by varying the preload on the Belleville spring. Moreover, it is very easy to assemble the components of the present clutch. To demonstrate the present design, a prototype friction clutch with a Belleville spring has been fabricated and tested. We showed that the transmitted torque remained constant for different operating speeds.