Dual Clutch Transmission Design
Highly complex mechanical systems
We worked alongside a large design team to design an 8 speed dual clutch transmission for a supercar.
Our key focus areas were the cast housings. As you can see from the images these housings were highly complex and included a lot of functionality. Supporting hundreds of parts and very tightly toleranced, attention to detail and precision was key in this project.
We joined the team at prototype phase. The transmission design was quite basic and blocky at this stage. We worked closely with other system owners and designers in the team to develop the housings into the parts you can see here.
We wrote the Product Design Specification for the whole gearbox. This gave us a good overview of all of the systems. We then spent a year or so designing the housings to solve complex challenges with the gearbox. We liased with prototype suppliers and inspected received parts with for quality issues. We worked closely with the test and development team to understand potential improvements in the gearbox housings.
We worked on this project for many years, through prototype into production. We performed Design for Manufacture (DFM) exercises on all of the housings to ensure the design was optimised for production volumes. We worked very closely with casting suppliers and CNC machine shops to do this.
We also worked very closely with the analysis team. The housings on this gearbox are stressed – they need to resist the extreme loads of gear shifting and engine torque. We integrated Finite Element Analysis into our workflow to optimise the housings for strength and weight.