This work offers a comprehensive solution to course question that is common in Mechanical Engineering curriculum, and that, to this end, had remained unsatisfactorily answered. The question has been used by professors, year after year, to test the understanding of students in the area of the design of clutches. The question appears mostly in the exact form presented herein, or in a tweaked variation of the same, mainly with varied parameters.
The question requires the student to determine the suitable number of disks of the clutch, the size of the disks the clamping force based on a given engine torque, factor of safety and maximum permissible pressure.
