New Criteria for Air Conditioning Belt Drive Design

Belt drives are simple and efficient and are widely used, but they are very often a source of vibration and noise. Usually, in the case of the automobile engine accessory drive system, especially air conditioning drive, considerable development time is spent on reducing this noise and vibration to an acceptable level. Herein, an analytical method is presented which allows the designer to approach this objective in the initial design stages. It is shown that a number of variables such as torque characteristics, belt span, belt material and construction contribute to the objectionable noise.