New Half Shaft Bench Test Methodology for NVH Characterization

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a reliable bench test to understand the vibratory behavior of the half shafts under applied torque comparable to an idle condition. In some cases, the half shaft path is a major factor influencing the idle vibration in the vehicle. At idle condition vehicle vibrations are caused by engine excitation and then they pass through different paths to the body structure. Half shaft manufacturers generally characterize shaft joints for their frictional behavior and typically there is no data for vibration characteristics of the half shaft under idle conditions. However, for predictive risk management, the vibratory behavior of the half shaft needs to be identified. This can be achieved from measured frequency response functions under preloaded test conditions.

This bench test enables manufacturers to conduct comprehensive design of experiments on the impact of powertrain vibration input while transmitting through the half shaft into the vehicle system. This method enables the study of the half shaft at the component level, because studying the half shaft at vehicle level is difficult since other paths are present. This paper describes the bench test methodology and presents certain boundary condition challenges of the half shaft measurements, the design of the test rig and the preliminary joint behavior results on the test bench.