Published on Nov 30, 2023
The first transmission invented was the manual transmission system. The driver needs to disengage the clutch to disconnect the power from the engine first, select the target gear, and engage the clutch again to perform the gear change. This will challenge a new driver. It always takes time for a new driver to get used to this skill.
An automatic transmission uses a fluid-coupling torque converter to replace the clutch to avoid engaging/disengaging clutch during gear change. A completed gear set, called planetary gears, is used to perform gear ratio change instead of selecting gear manually. A driver no longer needs to worry about gear selection during driving. It makes driving a car much easier, especially for a disabled or new driver.
However, the indirect gear contact of the torque converter causes power loss during power transmission, and the complicated planetary gear structure makes the transmission heavy and easily broken.
A semi-automatic transmission tries to combine the advantages of the manual and automatic transmission systems, but avoid their disadvantages. However, the complicated design of the semi-automatic transmission is still under development, and the price is not cheap. It is only used for some luxury or sports cars currently.
The Continuously Variable Transmission (C.V.T.) is a transmission in which the ratio of the rotational speeds of two shafts, as the input shaft and output shaft of a vehicle or other machine, can be varied continuously within a given range, providing an infinite number of possible ratios. The other mechanical transmissions described above only allow a few different gear ratios to be selected, but this type of transmission essentially has an infinite number of ratios available within a finite range.
It provides even better fuel economy if the engine is constantly made run at a single speed. This transmission is capable of a better user experience, without the rise and fall in speed of an engine, and the jerk felt when changing gears.
The main components of manual transmission are:
• Clutch
• Gear box
• U- joint
• Shafts
• Differential gear box
