The cooperation mode between the engagement and disengagement clutches for vehicles equipped with Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT) is of vital importance to achieve a smooth gearshift, in particular for the downshift process as its unavoidable power interruption during the inertia phase. Hence, to elevate the performance of DCT downshifting process, an analytical model and experimental validation for the analysis, simulation and control strategy are presented. Optimized pressure profiles applied on two clutches are obtained based on the detailed analysis of downshifting process. Then, according to the analysis results, a novel control strategy that can achieve downshift task with only one clutch slippage is proposed. The system model is established on Matlab/Simulink platform and used to study the variation of output torque and speed in response to different charging pressure profiles and various external loads during downshifting process. Simulation results show that, compared with conventional control strategies, the proposed one can not only avoid the torque hole and power circulation, but shorten the shift time and reduce the friction work. Furthermore, to validate the effectiveness of the control strategy, the bench test equipped with DCT is conducted and the experiment results show a good agreement with the simulation results.
