Vibrations and Instability in Automotive Front End Accessory Drive Belt System

The objective of this paper is to explore the dynamic features of vibrations and instability in automotive front end accessory drive belt system. To address this issue, a non-linear model of a moving beam with friction coupling on elastic foundation is developed. The model takes into account of a variety of nonlinear effects, including the contact stiffness nonlinearity, nonlinearities associated with the friction, tensioned parametric excitation, as well as the beam geometry nonlinearity. Different nonlinear properties are examined, and numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the system and to correlate with the experimental results. The major contributors to the dynamic contact instability are illustrated and are attributed to modal coupling and/or negative damping.