Engineering Management and

Law Report
Automobile Engine Transmission
































Naresh Krishna Gopikrishnan
25535412
1 9 Speed Transmission
Table of Contents




Engineering Management and Law Report 1
Automobile Engine Transmission 1
Table of Contents 2
Introduction 3
Market Analysis 3
Concept 4
Nine-speed Transmission 5
Cost Analysis 5
Conclusion 8
References 9
2 9 Speed Transmission
Introduction
In laymans terms, a transmission lets all the power from the source, most often an engine
or motor, drive a mechanism. Earlier, the clutch used to be independently mounted from
the box containing a conguration of gears, the gearbox. Nowadays, they are are merged
together to from one convenient component, the transmission.

The most common application of this example is in an automobile. As wrongly assumed
by a lot of people, the engine alone isn't considered the prime of the car. The transmission
plays a crucial and consistent role with its working, the basic function being turning the
engine speed or revolutions per minute (rpm) into torque (measured in pounds/feet)


Market Analysis
For developing individual transportation, the drive systems of modern vehicles should be
continually improved. Before the far sighted fully electric power trains take hold, the
automatic transmission take the centre stage. Currently, they are more efcient than their
manual counter parts and still have a more optimisable prospective. The chief focus is to
make the power train more efcient while increasing the driving comfort and
performance.

3 9 Speed Transmission
Worldwide transmission volume [1]
Transmissions with higher transmission ratio spreads and more gears with smaller steps
are more efcient and offer more power to the driver. While the 7 and 8 - speed
transmissions with elevated transmission ratio spreads already exist on the market for
longitudinally installed drivelines, this technology hasn't yet come to vehicles with
transverse-mounted engines. Compact and medium class applications ( segments with
low installation space requirements and high cost sensitivity on the customers side) use
the latter. If looked at the global gures, they proceed to win most of the market shares.

Today 75 percent of the cars travel with their engine transversely mounted to the direction
of movement. This total gives a logical reason to invest in improving the technology
employed in it. [1]

Concept
Considering the above market analysis as the prime foundation of our research and
development, the tting thing to work on would be to develop a transverse mounted
engine with higher gears than what is currently sold in the market, suitably a nine-speed.

More gears give the power train engineers more gear spread to work with. This means
that the rst gear can be shorter for a better accelerated start while the top gears can be
taller for better fuel economy. Having more gears allows smaller, more economical engines
to improve existing efciency limits of cars.
4 9 Speed Transmission
Power-to-weight Ratio Comparison [1]

A couple years ago, anything higher than a seven-speed transmission wouldnt have
given better efciency because the additional clutch required for the gear set would have
created more internal energy loss (parasitic loss) than the added gear span could
compensate.

With time, it has been discovered how to reduce those losses so that higher gears are
practically benecial. Now its useful to jump the standard ve clutches required for a six-
speed. [2]

Nine-speed Transmission
When it comes to the topic of installation space requirements, the size limit of the front
transverse planetary gear sets with six speeds has been reached in the current state of
technology. The additional gear sets and shifting elements necessary to manufacture a
nine-speed transmission cannot be tted in the strictly limited space. [1]
This can be avoided by putting two planetary gear sets on top of each other. Also, it
proved to be a space saving idea to integrate hydraulic mesh elements to minimise
volume and at the same time enable high efciency numbers. Even the drag losses which
heavily limited the use of higher gears can be nulled using dog clutches. The dog clutches
are crucial to these multi-gear systems because the enhanced efciency due to the higher
transmission spread should not be affected by the simple drag losses rather than design
aws.

Cost Analysis
(with changing a Technical Parameter)
The customer enjoys both a better driving performance and fuel economy.
Compared to todays standard six-speed transmission the nine-speed transmission should
give unto 16% higher fuel efciency [3]. While the standard six-speed transmission costs
1/3 times lower than the approximated concept price of the nine-speed system put
forward, the utility of the customer for the latter would be much more elevated owing to
the fact that the gear set provides better start up accelerations and multiple gear shifting
(leads to fuel savings).
Value can be added to the above example by changing the number of gears and
comparing the efciency of both power trains in terms of the volume of petrol it consumes
for 100 km of displacement (L/100Km). There are two reasons behind the application of
these parameters. Firstly, it is something the average driver can relate to. Secondly, it
5 9 Speed Transmission
provides a clear and legible outlook to whether the technology is actually an improvement
from its predecessor, whether it be the six-speed, seven-speed or a more recent eight-
speed transmission.
Taking a case of a standard Honda CRZ (2011) with a six speed gearbox consumes 6.1/4.4
L/100km. If it uses the proposed nine-speed transmission, the results would be a startling
5.1/3.7 L/100 km. Although it seems like a very minor decrease, the average customer
would enjoy savings of up to 350 per year ( Assuming the national average of 30,000 km
per year) with better engine performance. [4] Anything with more gear sets would
increase the internal drag caused and eclipses the efciency that it is believed to project.
This is due to the fact that current generation dog clutches (used to reduce parasitic losses)
cannot handle more than two planetary gear systems mounted on top of each other. The
ten speed system would require an additional gear system.
A standard six-speed transmission would be cheaper to manufacture than its nine-
speed counter part but the long term gains in fuel economy and customer satisfaction is
compromised.

These qualities would assuredly increase the magnitude of prospective customers.
The manufacturing of the proposed transmission system will require a new plant for
6 9 Speed Transmission
Fuel Economy of nine-speed transmission vs. six-speed [1]
enhanced production and logistic efciency. This will help in isolating the process from
the other undertakings and gives sufcient freedom to increase production limit if
required in the future. Approximating the resources currently possessed, a 90,000 m
2

facility dedicated to the production of the nine-speed speed transmission factory with an
ideal 1200 employees will be sufcient to produce 800,000 units a year [5]. The
approximation of the number units come from graph [1] when 75% of the current market
is lled with compatible cars. The initial investment would be enormous ( est. 275 mil.)
which includes the xed costs such as land, facility and equipment. The high funding
necessary to produce enough and more units foreseeing the future demand for nine-speed
transmission. It is comprehensibly the next big thing in the automobile industry, just like
turbochargers and superchargers were in their time.
Considering the raw materials, labour and all variable costs along with the long
term xed costs, the near cost price of each transmission can be estimated to being around
2100 with the company keeping a moderate 0.20 of each British Pound gained as
revenue, the break-even point will be attained in 4 years.
The above numbers are just vague approximations based on current scenario with a
high margin of error. The precise values can only be attained when the process
commences in real time. This is due to the fact that the cost of labour, raw material and
other variable measures, swerve very often. This makes it very hard to rough up costs.
There are a few problems with the theoretical efciency calculated as well, as practical
values most times dont match with them. All these factors make it really complicated to
calculate the real time costs or investment.










7 9 Speed Transmission

Conclusion
As it was established earlier, the need to implement a nine-speed transmission is more
imminent than ever and the opportunity should be used. Creating a whole new market
will lead to gaining the only share for that product much earlier than the competition.

The customers also get their own set of surprises. They spend less on fuel while satisfying
their thrill to speed. The customer spectrum would increase due to these principal benets
regardless of being more expensive than the standard six-speed transmission because the
merits overshadow the notable increase in price. The estimated numbers show that the
break-even point would be secured in a very short period of time which results in all
incoming revenue after that instance to be, prot.

The data and graphs show that the investment is not only well worth the risk and effort
but also gives the glory and publicity of being the rst to enter the newfound market. This
will also result in competition between the current transmission/gearbox manufacturer
which in yield greater technological development in the future

8 9 Speed Transmission
References
[1] (2012). 9HP . Available: http://www.zf.com/corporate/en/products/innovations/
9hp_automatic_transmission/9hp_automatic_transmission.html. Last accessed 20th Oct 2013.

[2] (2013). Gear me: Ford, GM building 9- and 10-speed transmissions. Available: http://
editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs/autosblogpost.aspx?post=ff4c44f2-c21e-4a17-a221-54ef2c06ba10.
Last accessed 18th Oct 2013.

[3] (2012). ZF 9HP Brochure. Available: http://www.zf.com/media/media/en/document/
corporate_2/products_3/innovation_1/9hp_1/brochure_9hp.pdf. Last accessed 20th Oct 2013.

[4] (2013). Fuel Cost Calculator. Available: http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/costs/fuel-cost-calculator/.
Last accessed 15th Oct 2013.

[5] (2013). Production starts for ZF's eight- and nine-speed automatic transmissions. Available:
http://www.sae.org/mags/aei/12335/. Last accessed 23rd Oct 2013.

13 more words to 1650 but I can't find space to fill them.
9 9 Speed Transmission