Engine Excitation Decomposition Methods and V Engine Results

Engine excitation forces have been studied in the past using one of two methods; a lumped sum or a totally distributed approach. The lumped sum approach gives the well-understood engine inherent unbalance and the totally distributed approach is used in engine CAE models to determine the overall engine response. The approach that will be described in this paper identifies an intermediate level of sophistication.

The methodology implemented considers single cylinder forces on the engine block, piston side thrust and main bearing forces, and decomposes them into their order content. The forces are then phased and geometrically distributed appropriately for each cylinder and then each order is analyzed relative to know distributions that are NVH concerns, V-block breathing, block side wall breathing, and block lateral and vertical bending.

This analysis provides insight into the relative magnitude and frequency of the excitation driving each of the distributions and analyzes differences that can be attributed to the number of cylinders, the bank angle and the firing order.