Attenuation of Driveline Vibrations through Tuning of Propeller Shaft Liners

The installation of various liners into the propeller shaft tube is a traditional driveline NVH treatment to attenuate driveline vibration. The most commonly used liners include rolled paper, C-cut cardboard, corrugated cardboard, etc. These traditional liner treatments are expected to provide damping to the driveline system to reduce the vibration levels. However their added level of damping and effectiveness to the driveline system are limited, particularly when dealing with driveline gear mesh vibration and noise.

This paper presents a novel type of liner treatment - tunable liners. The liner is designed such that it functions as a tuned dynamic vibration absorber. Through proper design of the liner, it can be tuned for bending and torsion modes at the same time. The liner design parameters and their impact on the frequency tuning are analyzed and studied through both physical testing and FEA analysis. Optimization of liner length and its placement location inside the tube is also discussed. Physical validation tests at both driveline subsystem and vehicle levels are presented that demonstrate superior performance of the liner including significant reduction of driveline gear mesh vibration and noise without the mass increase of traditional liners. Suitable applications and inherent limitations of these tunable liners are also discussed.