Verification of a New Principle of Automatic Transmission

From 1877, the continuously variable transmission (CVT) showed up and became popular in the transmission market, and it is expected to be the main stream of transmission in the future. This paper attempts to verify a new principle of CVT which is achieved by elastic deformation of an elastic belt. Unlike traditional transmission, this new approach does not rely on the gear ratio or the radius of the driving and driven wheel to change the speed ratio. The speed change is achieved by an elastic belt on two fixed-diameter pulleys. The belt elongates in proportion to the load applied, and the driving pulley has to rotate more to accommodate the increased length of the belt due to the load increase, consequently reduces the speed of driven pulley. This self-sensing, self-adjusting, and fully automatic drive system is pure mechanical without the need of electrical or hydraulic control, and greatly simplifies the current transmission system. This paper will introduce the new principle of automatic transmission and discuss the experimental results of the speed changes, and therefore prove the feasibility of the new principle of automatic transmission.