eli5 What does a clutch on a car do?
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a clucth to connect or disconnect spinning mechanical components, in this case the engine and gearbox, because it’s really hard to shift gears when the engine is driving the car, there is a lot of friction and you can easily damage the transmission
also it’s used to stop and start the car without stopping the engine
other applications of clutches inside cars are the air conditioning, when you press the AC button a small clutch connects the AC compression to the engine
The clutch basically acts as a middleman between gears. It works by disengaging the gears in the transmission when you step on the pedal, giving you and the transmission a chance to select the new gear and ensure that the gear teeth are aligned before engaging the transmission again when you step off the clutch. Most modern cars have syncro systems that allow you to slot into a new gear at any engine RPM speed; on older cars that don’t have this, you had to match the RPM with the gear you wanted next: if you were shifting down, you would have to rev higher to match the engine speed to the new shorter gear, and vice versa
It uses friction to connect and disconnect something moving(the engine) from something not moving, or moving at a different speed(the tires).
Without one, or something else that does the same job(like a torque converter), you’d damage the gears in the transmission when shifting, because it would be slamming the gear tooth into the full mass of a stopped car when you put it into gear. A clutch lets this happen gradually, with much lower force.
Basically, it’s a component that allows the engine to “clutch” the transmission.
Just like you clutch a handbag or clutch a bunch of flowers… the spinning crankshaft in the engine clutches the gearbox to make it spin via this “clutch” component
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