Serious efforts have been put in space to focus on lowering the fuel consumption and CO2 discharge to the environment from Automotive Diesel Engines. Though more focus is put on material up gradation approach on weight perspective, it is accompanied by undesirable cost increase and manufacturing complexity. As a part of development of a single cylinder engine for a light commercial vehicle application, a unique approach of integrated split type crankcase design is designed and developed. This design have addressed all the key factors on Weight, Cost and Manufacturing perspectives.
The split type crankcase configuration, particularly middle-split configuration, integrates the oil sump, front cover and flywheel housing in a single unit beneficial from the point of view of reducing engine weight and thus reducing the manufacturing costs. This crankcase is also excellent from the serviceability point of view. Further, due to less number of sealing joints, this configuration obviates oil leakages prevalent in the existing crankcases. The ribbing pattern internally and externally provided on the crankcase helps in achieving better NVH characteristics and also offers a simple load transfer path.
The paper further portrays the complete perspective and design methodology used during design process. Integration of classical methods, and FE analysis is presented. Simulation results are elaborated to show the effectiveness of an integrated approach used in this development program Tools like DFMEA, DFMA etc are used along with value engineering concepts to make an efficient and cost effective product to the end customer with minimum iterations in reduced cycle time.