Abstract
This study examined the fluid flow characteristics of a hydraulic retarder adapted as an auxiliary brake for heavy vehicles. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software STAR-CCM+ was used to investigate the torque performance and flow characteristics of the hydraulic retarder. The numerical results showed that the pressure distribution was higher near the inner wall surface of the rotor and stator. The pressure of the working fluid increased in the radial direction of the rotor and stator. The variation in the fluid velocity intensity showed a similar trend to that of the fluid pressure, but the maximum velocity appeared near the outer wall surface of the rotor and stator interface. The numerical results showed that increasing the revolution speed of the retarder greatly increased the rate of torque generation.