Yumei Hu

Dynamic response of a front end accessory drive system and parameter optimization for vibration reduction via a genetic algorithm

A typical engine front end accessory drive system (FEADS) is mathematically modeled through Hamilton’s principle and Newton’s second law. In this model, the belt’s flexural rigidity and pulley’s eccentricity are considered. Eccentricities of the pulleys are introduced into governing motion equations of the belt spans through the boundary conditions and then transformed to external forces acting on the belt spans. Vibration modes and natural frequencies of the FEADS are calculated by the state-space technique of the complex mode theory. Dynamic responses of the FEADS at different rotational rates of the crankshaft are calculated by solving the spatially discretized governing equations obtained by Galerkin method. The modeling and solution methods are formulated and programmed in a general purposed code. The study shows that the typical resonance and beat phenomenon happen in a certain portion of the belt spans at a certain rotational rate by the excitations of the pulley’s eccentricity. According to the modal analysis and dynamic response analysis, an optimization method based on a genetic algorithm is proposed. By comparing the vibration amplitudes of belt spans before and after optimization at different rotational rates, this optimization method is verified to be effective in reducing transverse vibrations of the belt spans.

Experiments and FEM simulations of fracture behaviors for ADC12 aluminum alloy under impact load

Using the combination of experiment and simulation, the fracture behavior of the brittle metal named ADC12 aluminum alloy was studied. Five typical experiments were carried out on this material, with responding data collected on different stress states and dynamic strain rates. Fractographs revealed that the morphologies of fractured specimen under several rates showed different results, indicating that the fracture was predominantly a brittle one in nature. Simulations of the fracture processes of those specimens were conducted by Finite Element Method, whilst consistency was observed between simulations and experiments. In simulation, the Johnson- Cook model was chosen to describe the damage development and to predict the failure using parameters determined from those experimental data. Subsequently, an ADC12 engine mount bracket crashing simulation was conducted and the results indicated good agreement with the experiments. The accordance showed that our research can provide an accurate description for the deforming and fracture processes of the studied alloy.

Hysteretic damping characteristics of a mechanical tensioner: Modeling and experimental investigation

The aim of this article is to investigate hysteretic damping characteristics of a typical tensioner used in engine accessory drive systems. An experiment device is developed to measure the friction coefficients of three contact pairs within the tensioner. Statistic results of test data show that the friction coefficient is linearly dependent on normal forces, and thus a linear function is used to describe it. An exact mathematical model and an accurate three-dimensional finite element model are proposed in this study to calculate the relationship of friction torque and rotation angle as well as the damping characteristics of the tensioner. The mathematical model and three-dimensional finite element model are verified through an experiment. Comparison indicates that both the mathematical and finite element model can accurately predict the working torque of the tensioner during operation process, while the finite element model has better accuracy in predicting the damping characteristics than the mathematical model.

Dynamic responses of an engine front-end accessory belt drive system with pulley eccentricities via two spatial discretization methods:

In this study, a generic mathematical model for calculating the natural frequencies and the dynamic responses of a typical front-end accessory drive system with any number of pulleys and arbitrary configurations of the tensioner and pulleys is established. The belt bending stiffness and the pulley eccentricities are considered in this model, and their influences on the natural frequency and the dynamic responses of the front-end accessory drive system are examined. A generic spatial discretization method and a Galerkin discretization method, which uses Lagrange multipliers to enhance the boundary conditions, are presented to discretize the continuous belt spans and to transform the governing partial differential equations into ordinary differential equations. The accuracies of the generic spatial discretization method and the Galerkin discretization method are validated by modal tests, and the advantages of the generic spatial discretization method with respect to the efficiency and the convenience of implementation are assessed by comparing the generic spatial discretization method with the Galerkin discretization method and the two-layer iteration approach. The dynamic responses of the typical front-end accessory drive system at different operational velocities are calculated from the governing ordinary differential equations derived from these two methods. It is shown that large vibration amplitudes occur in certain belt spans owing to the resonance conditions or the beat phenomena in certain operational conditions and that the belt bending stiffness has a negligible influence on the vibrations of the belt drive system because its value is small.