We analyse in terms of efficiency and traction capabilities a recently patented traction drive, referred to as the double roller fulltoroidal\r\nvariator (DFTV). We compare its performance with the single roller full-toroidal variator (SFTV) and the single roller\r\nhalf-toroidal variator (SHTV). Modeling of these variators involves challenging tribological issues; the traction and efficiency\r\nperformances depend on tribological phenomena occurring at the interface between rollers and disks, where the lubricant\r\nundergoes very severe elastohydrodynamic lubrication regimes. Interestingly, the DFTV shows an improvement of the mechanical\r\nefficiency over a wide range of transmission ratios and in particular at the unit speed ratio as in such conditions in which the DFTV\r\nallows for zero-spin, thus strongly enhancing its traction capabilities.Thevery highmechanical efficiency and traction performances\r\nof the DFTV are exploited to investigate the performance of a flywheel-based Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), where\r\nthe efficiency of the variator plays an important role in determining the overall energy recovery performance. The energy boost\r\ncapabilities and the round-trip efficiency are calculated for the three different variators considered in this study. The results suggest\r\nthat the energy recovery potential of the mechanical KERS can be improved with a proper choice of the variator.
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