A Simplified Three-Dimensional Finite Element Model of Serpentine Belt and its Application into a Belt Driving System

The serpentine belt's multi-scale problems in geometric size, which gives rise to a very large number of element and deeply low calculating efficiency, always bring obstacles when predicting the dynamic response of a serpentine belt driving system using three-dimensional finite element model (FEM). In this paper, a simplified finite element model is built which can accurately present the original serpentine belt's geometric characteristics such as cross-area and moment of inertia, as well as material characteristics such as stiffness and damping, etc. This simplified model is then used in a three-dimensional belt-drive model to simulate the dynamic characteristics of the belt-drive system. The results show that the tension fluctuation for the original serpentine belt and the simplified belt are in good agreement with each other which confirms that the simplified belt model can be used to predict the engine front end accessory drive system (EFEADS)'s dynamic characteristics. Furthermore, the simplified belt has greatly improved the calculating efficiency as it reduces element number and the minimum element size and can be modelled more easily compared with the serpentine belt, so the simplified model has a very important engineering significance especially when it is applied to the complicated EFEADS.