4. Conclusion To determine the effect of duct shape on the cooling performance of the clutch casting pressure plate, the numerical 3D conjugate CFD simulation is presented. The approach is cost effective and time saving, and eliminates the need for prototyping to estimate the cooling performance. This study is limited to thermo-fluidic performance but can be extended for the mechanical performance. Conclusions drawn from this study are summarized as follows. - Convection coefficient of the conventional clutch pressure plate increases linearly with the rotational speed (R2=0.9986). - Applying ventilation to conventional clutch pressure plate improves convection coefficient at minimum 29% within the operating range of the vehicle. - Applying ventilation into conventional clutch pressure plate improves the convection coefficient at maximum, by 44% at idle speed, by 36% at 1200 rpm and by 37% at 2000 rpm. - Variation of inlet and outlet duct width has negligible effect on overall cooling performance. - Radial airfoil shaped duct design shows the best cooling performance in overall among all duct shapes, and enhances the overall cooling performance (hxs; convective heat transfer coefficient x convection surface) by up to 154% at 550 rpm idle speed compared to conventional non-ventilated version. - Airfoil shaped radial duct design improves the the convection coefficient by 11% at idle speed compared to non-airfoil radial version. - These findings suggest that there is an opportunity to reduce the weight of the heaviest part of the clutch system by up to 25%, while also improving its cooling performance. The results of this research also support the target of greenhouse gas emission reductions in heavy duty vehicle applications.