An announcement this week about new dual clutch technology arriving in Australia means we now need to know just how this smoother changing AMT works. Luckily for us, the kind folks at Volvo have made a video to show just how the technology works and how it will smooth out the transition from one ratio to another with no dip in torque.
According to Volvo the dual clutch will give the truck power-shift gear changes without any interruption in power delivery, torque is maintained and the truck does not lose any speed during gear changes.
The I-Shift Dual Clutch transmission consists of two input shafts and a dual clutch, which means that two gears can be selected at the same time. It is the clutch that determines which of the gears is currently active. I-Shift Dual Clutch is based on I-Shift, but the front half of the gearbox has been redesigned with entirely new components.
The dual clutch concept has been made available before in Australia. There is an option in the Fuso Canter for the Duonic dual clutch AMT and the technology has been offered, less successfully, in some Volkswagen cars here.
However, this the first time this kind of technology has been used in a driveline for a heavy duty truck in Australia.