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Article
Journal of Vibration and Control
1–11

A general approach to tune the vibration ! The Author(s) 2014

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properties of the mounting system in the DOI: 10.1177/1077546314528963
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high-speed and heavy-duty engine

Baocheng Zhang1,2, Haifei Zhan2 and Yuantong Gu2

Abstract
The majority of the current research on the mounting system has emphasised on the low/medium power engine, rare
work has been reported for the high-speed and heavy-duty engine, the vibration characteristics of which exhibits
significantly increased complexity and uncertainty. In this work, a general dynamics model was firstly established to
describe the dynamic properties of a mounting system with various numbers of mounts. Then, this model was employed
for the optimization of the mounting system. A modified Powell conjugate direction method was developed to improve
the optimization efficiency. Basing on the optimization results obtained from the theoretical model, a mounting system
was constructed for a V6 diesel engine. The experimental measurement of the vibration intensity of the mounting
systems shows excellent agreement with the theoretical calculations, indicating the validity of the model. This dynamics
model opens a new avenue in assessing and designing the mounting system for a high-speed and heavy-duty engine. On
the other hand, the delineated dynamics model, and the optimization algorithm should find wide applications for other
mounting systems, such as the power transmission system which usually has various uncertain mounts.

Keywords
Mounting system, vibration, inertia matrix, stiffness matrix

vibration of an internal combustion engine is originated

1. Introduction from two aspects, one is the pressure combustion and
For a long period of time, engine research were majorly the other one is the inertia force and torque caused by
focused on dynamics issues, such as how to increase the the rotating and reciprocating parts (Periyasamy and
power-to-weight ratio, decrease the specific fuel con- Alwarsamy, 2012; Sigmund et al., 2012). Therefore, a
sumption and specific weight, or improve the reliability most effective and typical way to reduce the vibration is
and durability of the engine. Owing to the increasing to control and moderate the vibration excitations from
requirement of the energy conservation and environ- the inner part of the engine. The balancing schemes
ment protection, a great deal of research effort has are the popular method that have been used to reduce
been drawn on the exhaust gas emission (Zheng et al., the inner inertia force and torque of engine, which have
2004; Abdelaal and Hegab, 2012), vibration and noise been applied in various engines (Zhang et al., 2002),
control and other environmental and riding comfort e.g., Cummins 4TB, CAT 3304, DEUTZ
related issues. Almost all recent major technical pro-
gress of engine are focused on these areas (Williams 1
College of Mechanical Engineering and Automatization, North
et al., 2012; Salvi et al., 2012). Specifically, the mounting
University of China, Taiyuan, China
system is the principal research field for the vibration 2
School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland
and noise control of engine, which could ensure the University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
stable operation of the engine by adjusting the vibration Received: 26 May 2013; accepted: 26 February 2014
intensity on the one hand, and on the other hand, could
alleviate the actuation from the engine that exerted on Corresponding author:
Yuantong Gu, School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering,
the vehicle (Shangguan, 2009; Yu et al., 2001). Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane,
A great amount of research has been conducted on QLD 4001, Australia.
the control of engine vibration. As is well known, the Email: yuantong.gu@qut.edu.au

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2 Journal of Vibration and Control

BFM1015CP, EQB 140-11 and others. Recent develop- establish a general dynamics model to describe the
ment of the new combustion technique (like the mod- dynamic properties of such a mounting system, basing
erate combustion) has also greatly benefited the on the assumption that the mounting system is sup-
alleviation of engine vibration. Another usual way is ported by the normal rubber elastic shock absorber,
by the aid of the external mounting system. The con- which is usually the case for the high-speed and
cepts of ‘centre of percussion’, ‘torque roll axis (Hu and heavy-duty diesel engine. The outline of the present
Singh, 2011), ‘elastic centre’ and others that proposed paper is as follows: in section 2.1, the free vibration
during the 70–80th last century are still playing a critical analysis of the engine mounting system will be detailed
role in the design of the mounting system, especially to derive the system’s natural frequencies and their cor-
when these concepts are combined with the modern responding vibration modes. In section 2.2, the forced
optimization (Ahn et al., 2003), signal processing, simu- vibration analysis will be conducted which is the actual
lation and modelling techniques (Park and Singh, 2010; vibration states when engine works. The optimization
Christopherson and Jazar, 2006; Barszcz et al., 2012). as well as the design of the engine mounting system will
Besides, the design of new shock-absorber or damper is be followed in section 3. Finally, we shall construct the
also a promising way to control the engine vibration, mounting system for a V6 diesel engine, in situ vibra-
which has become an active research area owing to the tion experiments will be carried out to validate the the-
advancement of techniques and materials. For instance, oretical model in section 4.
the hydraulic engine mounts has been widely used in
the intermediate cars due to its compact structure and 2. Dynamics model of the engine
adjustable damping property (Wu and Shangguan,
mounting system
2010a). In addition, researchers have also proposed
various novel active or semi-active techniques to tune From the viewpoint of the vibration isolation, the nat-
the performance of the mounting system and thus con- ural frequency of the engine mounting system ranges
trol the engine vibration (Fakhari and Ohadi, 2012; Wu from 6 to 30 Hz (which is far below the first natural
and Shangguan, 2010b; Truong and Ahn, 2010; Lee frequency of the engine, usually hundreds of Hz),
and Lee, 2009), though the popularization of these thereby the engine can be simplified as spatial rigid
techniques are still requiring wide investigation. body that is comprised of by many separate rigid com-
It is noticed that the majority of previous research or ponents, such as cylinder head, cylinder block, lower
techniques are devoted to the engine with low/medium crankcase, crankshaft, turbo and others. The mounting
power, and rare work has been reported for the high- system can then be described by the generalized coord-
speed and heavy-duty diesel engines (Wu et al., 2005). inates vector fqg ¼ fx, y, z, x , y , z gT with six degrees of
For example, the wire rope vibration isolator (Tinker freedom. Here x, y and z denote the axe of the global
and Cutchins, 1992), knitted wire mesh shock-absorber coordinates system. As schematically shown in
and other metallic elastic mounts are reported with Figure 1, we consider n mounts, each of which has stiff-
good oil and aging resistance, stable performance ness in three principal directions. The origin of the
under a wide range of temperature, whereas seldom global coordinates is located at the balance position
of them has been successfully utilized in the high- of the centre of mass, while the x axis is along the axe
speed and heavy-duty diesel due to their large of the crankshaft and z axis is along the vertical direc-
volume, installation inconvenience and lacking of dis- tion. It is noteworthy to mention that, the usual treat-
placement limiting capacity. Restricted by the limita- ment is adopted to establish the theoretical model in
tion of affordable load, the application of hydraulic this paper, i.e., the installation foundation is considered
elastic mounts for the heavy-duty engine is still request- as a rigid body (Yu et al., 2001). This assumption is
ing extensive investigation. Therefore, along with the valid, as the highest natural frequency of the engine
increasing requirement of the environmental protection mounting system is usually far below the first natural
and riding comfort for the vehicles with high-speed and frequency of the chassis that is installed with high-speed
heavy-duty diesel engines, such as engineering vehicles and heavy-duty engine.
and heavy-duty trucks, the investigation of the mount-
ing system shows great significances and contributions
to the current knowledge body, which is the major aim
2.1. Free vibration of the engine mounting system
of this paper. For a conservative mechanical system, the Lagrangian
Conclusively, although the high-speed and high equation is
engine power do not play an influential role in the  
mounting design process, they usually require a mount- d @T @T @V
 ¼ ð1Þ
ing system with more mounts that is different from a dt @qj @qj @qj
typical 3 or 4 mounts system. In this paper, we will

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Zhang et al. 3

system with respect to the mass centre can be obtained

as below

~
~ ¼ x i~þ y j~þ z k, ~_ ¼ _x i~þ _y j~þ _z k~ ð4Þ
According to equation (4), for any rigid component i
with a radius vector of r~i ¼ xi i~þ yi j~þ zi k~ with respect
to the mass centre, its rotational kinetic energy is
given as

1 h   
Tri ¼ mi yi _z þ zi _y i~þ zi _x þ xi _z j~
2
  i
þ xi _y þ yi _x k~ ð5Þ

Hence, the total rotational kinetic energy Tr can be

expressed as below
Figure 1. Schematic view of the engine mounting system.
1 1 1
Tr ¼ Jx _x2 þ Jy _y2 þ Jz _z2
2 2 2
 ðJxy _x _y þ Jyz _y _z þ Jzx _z _x Þ ð6Þ

where T and V represent the kinetic and potential Here, Jx , Jy and Jz are the system’s moment of inertia,
energy of the system, respectively. qj is the generalized and Jxy , Jyz and Jzx are thePsystem’s product of inertia,
P
coordinates of the system. Hence, the differential equa- they are given asP Jx ¼ ni¼1 mi ð y2i þ z2i Þ,PJy ¼ ni¼1
n n
tion for the free vibration of the mounting system can mi ðz2i þ 2 2 2
Pun i Þ, Jxy ¼ i¼1 mi xi yi ,
Pxni Þ, Jz ¼ i¼1 mi ðxi þ
be expressed as Jyz ¼ i¼1 mi yi zi and Jzx ¼ i¼1 mi zi xi , respectively.
Substituting equation (6) into equation (3), the total
€ þ ½Kfqg ¼ 0
½Mfqg ð2Þ kinetic energy has the following matrix form

Here, ½M and ½K are the inertial and stiffness matrices 1 T
_ ½Mfqg
T ¼ fqg _ ð7Þ
€ denotes the generalized
of the system, respectively. fqg 2
acceleration vector.
where ½M represents the inertial matrix of the system,
2.1.1. Kinetic energy of the engine mounting system. During which equals
the vibration of the engine mounting system, the kinetic 2 3
energy of the whole system T is composed by contribu- m 0 0 0 0 0
tions from two aspects, i.e., the translational kinetic 60 m 0 0 0 0 7
6 7
energy Tt and the rotational kinetic energy Tr of the 60 0 m 0 0 0 7
½M ¼ 6
60 0
7 ð8Þ
system regarding to the mass centre. Basically, Tt is 6 0 Jx Jxy Jxz 7
7
estimated by considering the engine as a whole rigid 40 0 0 Jxy Jy Jyz 5
body, while Tr is calculated from a summation over 0 0 0 Jxz Jyz Jz
all rigid components, i.e.
Apparently, by considering x, y and z as the engine’s
1   1X n
principal axe of inertia, we have Jxy ¼ Jyz ¼ Jzx ¼ 0.
T ¼ Tt þ Tr ¼ m x_ 2 þ y_ 2 þ z_2 þ Ii _2 ð3Þ Under such circumstance, ½M becomes a diagonal
2 2 i¼1 i
matrix, indicating the system has no inertia coupling.
where m is the mass of the whole system. Ii and !i are
the moment of inertia and the angular velocity of the 2.1.2. Potential energy of the engine mounting system. As
ith component around the rotation axis, respectively. usual, we assume the potential energy of the system at
n is the total number of engine components. static balance states equals zero and ignore the gravita-
For simplicity, the unit vector along x, y and z dir- tional potential energy during engine vibration. Hence,
ections are denoted as i, ~ respectively. Assuming
~ j~ and k, the potential energy of the engine mounting system can
slight vibration of the system, the angular displacement be calculated through the summation of the potential
vector as well as the angular velocity vector of the energy of each mount that is induced by the elastic

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4 Journal of Vibration and Control

Table 1. The angles between the local coordinates system the local coordinates system u, v and w are parallel to
and global coordinates system. the global coordinates system, under which condition,
½Fj  is only related to the mount’s location, i.e.
ox oy oz
2 3
uj 1j 1j 1j 1 0 0 0 zj yj
vj 2j 2j 2j ½Fj  ¼ 4 0 1 0 zj 0 xj 5 ð13Þ
wj 3j 3j 3j 0 0 1 yj xj 0

deformation during vibration. As aforementioned, we 2.1.3. Solving the differential equation for the free vibration of
consider the mounting system has n mounts, each of the mounting system. Since we get the inertia matrix ½M
which possesses stiffness in three principal directions and the stiffness matrix ½K, the differential equation for
as kxj , kyj and kzj . To derive the potential energy, a the free vibration of the engine mounting system can be
local coordinates system is established for each mount solved by substituting equations (8) and (12) into equa-
with uj , vj and wj representing the unit vector along the tion (2). The solution can be formally given as
three principal axe. According to Figure 1, the relation
between the local coordinates system and the global fqg ¼ fXg sinð!t þ Þ ð14Þ
coordinates system can be described by the angular
values as listed in Table 1. Simplify equation (2) by using equation (14), we get
Suppose the displacement vector of the jth mount
equals ~ ~ which can be decom-
qj ¼ xj i~þ yj j~þ zj k, ½KfXg ¼ !2 ½MfXg ð15Þ
posed along the local coordinates system as
8 9 Let ½M1 ½K ¼ ½A, then equation (15) can be expressed
< uj = as
fUj g ¼ vj ¼ ½Fj fqj g, j ¼ 1, 2, . . . , n ð9Þ
: ;
wj ½AfXg ¼ !2 fXg ð16Þ

where ½Fj  is determined by the location and orientation It is evident from equation (16) that !2 is the eigen-
of the mount, which is derived as value of the matrix ½A, and fXg is its corresponding

2 3
cos 1j cos 1j cos 1j zj cos 1j þ yj cos 1j xj cos 1j þ zj cos 1j yj cos 1j þ xj cos 1j
6 yj cos 2j þ xj cos 2j 7
½Fj  ¼ 4 cos 2j cos 2j cos 2j zj cos 2j þ yj cos 2j xj cos 2j þ zj cos 2j 5 ð10Þ
cos 3j cos 3j cos 3j zj cos 3j þ yj cos 3j xj cos 3j þ zj cos 3j yj cos 3j þ xj cos 3j

Therefore, the total potential energy of the vibration eigenvector. In particular, ½A is an asymmetric matrix
system can be written as that has real eigenvalue and eigenvector, for which, the
common solving methods will inevitably induce round-
n   1
1X off error. To improve the calculation precision, equa-
V¼ kuj u2j þ kvj v2j þ kwj w2j ¼ fqgT ½Kfqg tion (16) is solved by the procedure described below.
2 j¼1 2
According to equation (8), the inertia matrix ½M66 is a
ð11Þ symmetric positive definite matrix, which can be
decomposed according to Cholesky factorization as
Here, ½K represents the stiffness matrix of the system, ½M ¼ ½D½DT , where ½D is a low triangular matrix. Let
which equals
2 3 ½P ¼ ½D1 ½Kð½D1 ÞT , fYg ¼ ½DT fXg ð17Þ
X
n kuj 0 0
½K ¼ ½Fj T ½Kj ½Fj , ½Kj  ¼ 4 0 kvj 0 5 ð12Þ Equation (16) is changed as
j¼1 0 0 kwj
½PfYg ¼ !2 fYg ð18Þ
From equation (12), the system stiffness matrix is deter-
mined by the mount’s number, stiffness, as well as its Apparently, ½P and ½K are similar matrices, and ½P is a
location and orientation. It is noteworthy to mention symmetric matrix. According to the Jacobi method, the
that, the stiffness matrix can be greatly simplified when eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenvectors can

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Zhang et al. 5

be easily calculated. These eigenvalues are actually the complex stiffness matrix. j½Kfqg is the imaginary
square values of the natural frequencies of the mount- restoring force of the system’s complex stiffness
ing system. Through equation (17), the eigenvector fYg matrix, which represents the amplitude and phase of
can be converted to the system eigenvector fXg. the damping force ½Cfqg. _ Particularly, the vibration
Including all eigenvectors in a matrix, the modal isolation performance of the mounting system is deter-
vector matrix of the mounting system ½ can be mined by the real part ½K of the complex stiffness
obtained. Conclusively, through the analysis of the matrix. In other words, we can adjust the installation
free vibration of the mounting system, we obtained location and orientation of the rubber elastic compo-
the system’s natural frequencies, and their correspond- nent, as well as change the stiffness of the component to
ing vibration modes. avoid the system from falling in the resonance region.
We should note that the damping effect of the rubber
2.2. Forced vibration of the engine component exert ignorable influence to the isolation of
the system vibration, while it does benefit the reduction
mounting system
of the vibration amplitude during the acceleration or
2.2.1. Differential equation of the structural damping vibration deceleration of the engine when it passes the resonance
system. The vibration excitations that exerted on the domain.
engine are usually periodic, and each excitation can be
decomposed into several harmonic components. 2.2.2. Solving the differential equation for the forced vibration
According to the principle of linear superposition, each of the mounting system. Since the principal axe of inertia
harmonic component can be treated separately, and the of the mounting system is usually unparallel to the axis
overall response of the system can be obtained by the of the crankshaft, thereby, the off-diagonal elements
summation of all individual response. Particularly, for Jxy , Jyz and Jzx in the inertia matrix equation (8) are
a periodic harmonic excitation load, the differential generally not all zero, i.e., the vibration system is iner-
equation of a linear vibration system is given as tial coupled. In the meanwhile, the stiffness matrix also
possesses many nonzero off-diagonal elements, i.e., the
€ þ ½Cfqg
½Mfqg _ þ ½Kfqg ¼ ff ðtÞg ð19Þ vibration system is also elastic coupled. Thus, equation
(21) is actually an equation set that being comprised by
where ½M and ½K are the inertia and stiffness matrices a group of non-independent equations, to solve which
that deduced from section 2.1, fqg _ is the generalized the decoupling is required.
velocity vector, ff ðtÞg is the generalized load vector Assume one of the vibration excitation equals
and ½C is the damping matrix that is obtained by ff ðtÞg ¼ fFgej!t , according to the orthogonal property
assembling the damping characteristics from the of both the inertia matrix ½M and stiffness matrix ½K
mounting system. To mention that, the generalized with the system model matrix ½, equation (21) can be
load vector includes the two major aspects of vibration termed as
excitations, i.e., the overturning moment due to the
combustion pressure, and the unbalanced inertia ½Mm fq€m g þ ð1 þ jÞ½Km fqm g ¼ ½T fFgej!t ð22Þ
forces and torques of the moving parts.
As mentioned before, for the high-speed and heavy- where ½Mm  and ½Km  are the diagonalized inertia and
duty diesel engine, the mount is usually rubber elastic stiffness matrices under the modal coordinates, respect-
component which can be treated as structural damping ively. ½qm  is the modal coordinates, and fqg ¼ ½fqm g.
as it is working under low frequency status. Hence the Thus, the inter-coupled vibration equation equation
damping matrix is given as (21) is changed to the six independent single degree of
freedom vibration equation under the modal coordin-
½C ¼ j½K ð20Þ ates through the orthogonal transformation. The
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi decoupled ith equation is then expressed as
where j ¼ 1,  is the structural loss factor which is
between 0.05  0.3 for the rubber elastic component. mmi q€ mi þ Kmi ð1 þ jÞqmi ¼ Fmi ej!t , ði ¼ 1, 2, . . . , 6Þ
For the natural butadiene nitrile rubber,  ¼ 0:075 ð23Þ
(Yang and Bai, 2002). Substituting equation (20) into
equation (19), the differential equation is then given as Here, mmi is the ith modal mass, Kmi ð1 þ jÞ is the ith
modal stiffness and qmi is the ith modal coordinate of
€ þ ð1 þ jÞ½Kfqg ¼ ff ðtÞg
½Mfqg ð21Þ the system. Fmi is the force that exerted on
Pthe ith modal
coordinate, which is given as Fmi ¼ 6j¼1 ji F (the
For the above equation, the stiffness and damping overturning moment is applied along the x direction
characteristics of the mount are represented by the for i ¼ 4 and the unbalanced inertia forces and torques

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6 Journal of Vibration and Control

are implemented along their corresponding directions). mounts. The first group is the characteristic parameters,
By solving equation (23), following result is obtained i.e., the stiffness of the mount. The second one is the
geometry parameters, which includes the installation
Fmi =Kmi location and orientation of the mount (see Table 1).
qmi ¼ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  ffi sinð!t  mi Þ ð24Þ
2 To monitor the vibration of the mounting system,
!2
1 p2i
þ2 we can either measure the vibration intensity of the
engine itself or the excitations that it exerts on the foun-
where p2i ¼ Kmi =mmi and Pi ¼ arctgðp2i =ð p2i  !2 ÞÞ. dation. In this paper, the minimum equivalent vibration
Hence, the displacement response under the global intensity of the engine Vs is chosen as the objective
coordinates equals function, which is defined as below. For a working cir-


culation, the effective vibration velocity Vrms of the
q ¼ ½’ qm sinð!t  m Þ ð25Þ engine is defined as
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Z
From above equation, the corresponding velocity 1 T 2
Vrms ¼ v ðtÞdt ð28Þ
_ and acceleration fqg
fqg € can be obtained. Similarly, T 0
we can calculate the response of the system under a
group of excitations, and then obtain the overall where vðtÞ is the vibration velocity and T is the vibra-
response of the system through the principle of tion period. Suppose vðtÞ is comprised by n known har-
linear superposition. Since we get the overall system monic components, then Vrms can be calculated either
response, the response of any locations  with the through the known effective vibration velocity compo-
coordinates of x , y and z can be easily estimated nent Vrmsi ,
from the flowing equation
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
X n
Vrms ¼ V2rmsi ð29Þ
fX , Y , Z gT ¼ ½Efqg ð26Þ i¼1

where ½E is the coordinates transformation matrix, or the known vibration peak of each velocity compo-
which is given as nent v^i ,
2 3 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 0 0 0 z y 1X n
½E ¼ 4 0 1 0 z 0 x 5 ð27Þ Vrms ¼ v^2 ð30Þ
2 i¼1 i
0 0 1 y x 0

Hence, the equivalent vibration intensity equals

3. Optimization of the engine vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
!2 !2 !2ffi
u PN PN y PN z
mounting system u x
i¼1 Vxi i¼1 Vyi i¼1 Vzi
Vs ¼ t þ þ
Section 2 has developed a theoretical model that is Nx Ny Nz
capable of describing any kind of engine mounting ð31Þ
system, which could not only be used to analyse the
vibration characteristics of the existing mounting where Vx , Vy and Vz are the effective vibration velocity
system, but also be applied to guide the design of along the three orthogonal directions, with Nx , Ny and
the mounting system. In this section, we will show Nz as the corresponding inspection points that being
how to optimize the mounting system by using this considered along the three principal directions. For
model which will be achieved by following a typical instance, the objective function can be termed as
optimization procedure. below when nine inspection points of the engine are
considered along each principal direction.
3.1. Design parameters and objective functions vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u P9 !2 P9 !2 P9 !2ffi
According to the governing equations of the mounting u
~ ¼t i¼1 Vxi i¼1 Vyi i¼1 Vzi
system given by equations (2) and (21), the vibration min Vx ðXÞ þ þ
9 9 9
characteristics of the mounting system is determined by
the inertia matrix ½M, stiffness matrix ½K and damping ð32Þ
matrix ½C. Hence the design parameters can be cate-
gorized into two groups for a mounting system with n

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Zhang et al. 7

obtained following certain specific requirements.

3.2. Constraints and optimization algorithm Comparisons between the experimental measurements
To conduct the optimization, following aspects of con- and theoretical calculations were made.
straints should be considered:
4.1. Design of the mounting system
(i) Geometrical: the location and orientation of the
mounts are restricted by the available engine and The considered target is a V6 diesel engine that used in
foundation compartment space; a heave-duty vehicle, which uses the reciprocating
(ii) Stiffness: the mount should have high stiffness to piston and side-by-side connecting rods. The cylinder
ensure a low shake level at low frequency and sup- diameter is 155 mm, with the crank radius as 80 mm
port the whole engine, while it also requires low and the connecting rod’s length as 300 mm. The mass
stiffness to ensure low noise levels; of the engine is estimated as 1286.31 Kg, with its overall
(iii) Natural frequency of the mounting system: the nat- dimension as 1  1.05  1.02 m3. According to the
ural frequency of the mounting system should dynamics calculation and equilibrium analysis of the
avoid the resonance and shock excitation; inertial force, the vibration excitations are basically ori-
(iv) Vibration transmissibility, upper limit around 25%; ginated from the overturning moment and the second-
(v) Decoupling of the vibration system. ary reciprocating inertia moment (Deng and Zhang,
2012). Recall equation (8), the inertial matrix is calcu-
According to equation (32), the objective function as lated as below, which incorporates contributions from
well as some of the constraints (such as constraints iii, totally 88 different components, including cylinder
iv and v) is a complex implicit function of the design head, cylinder block, lower crankcase, crankshaft,
parameters. Therefore, the traditional gradient-based turbo and others. To note that, to best mimic a real
optimization algorithm is not suitable, while the non- situation, the lubrication oil and cooling liquid are also
gradient-based optimization algorithms, such as the considered during the calculation of ½M.
Complex Method are unable to treat problems with 2 3
multiple design parameters. Hence, we developed a 1286:31 0 0 0 0 0
new optimization algorithm as detailed below. 6 7
6 0 1286:31 0 0 07 0
Firstly, the constraint mathematic model is con- 6 7
6 7
verted to the unconstraint model according to the aug- 6 0 0 1286:31 0 0 0 7
½M¼ 6
6
7
mented Lagrange multiplier method (Deb and 6 0 0 0 109:45 1:39 17:02 7
7
Srivastava, 2012). Then, a new algorithm that requires 6 7
6 0 0 0 1:39 139:35 2:08 7
no calculation of gradient is employed, which is based 4 5
on the Powell conjugate direction method (PCDM). 0 0 0 17:02 2:08 132:77
Since it is uneasy to obtain the global optimal solution ð33Þ
for a medium or large optimization problem for the
traditional PCDM, several modifications have been According to the actual engineering requirement, the
made to the PCDM. More specifically, the initial iter- mounting system of this V6 diesel engine has four
ation point is chosen by following the idea of interior mounts, as schematically shown in Figure 2.
point penalty function, which could ensure it satisfies Specifically, the left and right mounts are symmetric
all the constraints. Afterwards, a set of orthogonal dir- along the axis of crankshaft, and the u-axis of the
ections is adopted as the conjugate searching reference local coordinate system of the mount is parallel to the
direction. Furthermore, the traditional PCDM iter- global x-axis, which eliminates two angular degrees of
ation step selection is replaced by the one dimensional freedom. According to Figure 2, each mount has seven
optimal selection along the reference direction that design mounts, and there are only fourteen independent
based on the Fibonacci method. Such step selection parameters due to the symmetric configuration of the
scheme could avoid the PCDM method from falling mount as denoted below
in an infinite loop when it comes across the local opti-  
mal solution, thus enable the fast locating of the global fXg ¼ xf , yf , zf , f , kuf , kvf , kwf , xr , yr , zr , r , kur , kvr , kwr
optimal solution from the feasible domain. ð34Þ

The first seven parameters are for the right front mount
4. Experimental validation
Mf , with the rest seven parameters for the right left
To show the validity of the theoretical model, in situ mount Mr as illustrated in Figure 2.
experiments were conducted. The mounting system was Since the confirmation of the design parameters, we
constructed according to the optimization results that then consider the constraints. Firstly, the installation

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8 Journal of Vibration and Control

space of the four mounts is restricted not only by the vibration along x axis decoupled, following two con-
geometry of the diesel engine but also by the installa- straints are applied (see reference Zhang et al. 2004 for
tion space of the foundation. The stiffness of the mount the derivation details of these two constraints)
should be high enough to support the whole engine, 8 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
while higher stiffness will lead to worse vibration isola- >
> ð
2
1kuf =kwf Þ ð1kuf =kwf Þ 4ðjzf j=jyf jÞðkuf =kwf Þ
>
< tgf ¼
tion. For each vibration
pffiffiffi mode, the frequency of the 2ðjzf j=jyf jÞ
mounting system is 1= 2 of the lowest excitation fre- p ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð35Þ
>
> ð1kur =kwr Þ ð1kur =kwr Þ2 4ðjzr j=jyr jÞðkur =kwr Þ
quency along the corresponding frequency direction >
: tgr ¼
2ðjzr j=jyr jÞ
(Kelly, 2007). To keep the elastic centre of the front
and rear mounts locating at the torque axis, and thus
make the horizontal vibration along y direction, verti- By considering nine inspection locations, substituting
cal vibration along z direction as well as torsional all parameters and constraints to the objective function
equation (32), the following optimization results were
obtained for the fourteen design parameters fXg as
listed in Table 2.
Under these optimization results, the modal frequen-
cies of the mounting system, as well as their corres-
ponding normalized vibration modes were calculated
as listed in Table 3. As is seen, almost all of off-diagonal
elements of the normalized vibration mode table are
very close to zero, suggesting vibration along the six
directions are well decoupled. Specifically, the vibration
transmissibility along all three principal directions is
estimated below 10%.

4.2. Establishment and testing of the real

mounting system
According to the above optimization, we build the
Figure 2. Schematic view of an engine mounting system with
four mounts. xf , yf and zf represent the coordinates of the right mounting system for the V6 diesel engine, basing on
front mount Mf , f is the angle between the local w axis and the which several vibration intensity measurements were
global z axis, kuf , kvf and kwf are the stiffness along the three local conducted.
principal axe. Similar definitions are applied to the right rear The experiments were carried out according to the
mount Mr . Chinese national standard GB/T 12779-91, i.e., the

Table 2. Optimization results of the mounting system with four mounts for a V6 diesel engine.

x (mm) y (mm) z(mm)  ku (N/mm) kv (N/mm) kw (N/mm)

Front mount 491.9 410.4 48.1 18.5 1265.3 214.6 214.6

Rear mount 623.5 378.5 110 37.5 1050.4 146.3 146.3

Table 3. Six vibration modes of the mounting system and their corresponding normalized modes of vibration.

fx fy fz fx fy fz

Modal frequency (Hz) 4.04 3.98 9.34 14.27 13.99 7.96

Corresponding normalized 1 0.00006 0.00861 0.00189 0.05723 0.00071

vibration mode 0.00018 1 0.00203 0.05821 0.00120 0.01346
0.00059 0.00006 1 0.00177 0.05199 0.00055
0.00033 0.00641 0.00124 1 0.02764 0.00229
0.00571 0.00047 0.04462 0.03088 1 0.02012
0.00087 0.09290 0.00247 0.36652 0.00044 1

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Zhang et al. 9

method of measurement and evaluation of mechanical from inspection point P3 under the standard running
vibration for reciprocating machines. The measurement condition (status III). By incorporating the velocity
scheme is presented in Figure 3, where a Schenck data into equations (28)–(30), the effective vibration
D-1200 dynamometer was used to apply the load to velocity of each inspection point can be obtained,
the engine, and the B&K 4321 acceleration sensor was basing on which the equivalent vibration intensity of
utilized to collect the vibration acceleration signals the engine can be acquired from equation (31).
along three principal directions. After that, the signal During the test, the power and the speed of the
was converted and amplified by the B&K 2635 charge engine vary with time. In order to minimize the
amplifier before sending to the HP 3565S/I-DEASTM
4.0 signal collection and analysis system. In the end, the
signals were recorded by the SGI workstation.
We tested the three typical working status of the
diesel engine, which includes I: idling condition, with
the rotation speed of 800 rpm and torque of 163 Nm;
II: external characteristic peak torque condition, with
the rotation speed of 1500 rpm and torque of 1930 Nm;
and III: standard running condition, with the rotation
speed of 2200 rpm and torque of 1681 Nm. During
each testing, nine B&K 4321 acceleration sensors were
assigned to the engine which corresponds to the nine
inspection points that being considered during the opti-
mization. Figure 4 shows the actual locations of these
nine inspection points. All experiments were conducted
under the temperature of 20  C, with the humidity as Figure 5. Time history of the velocity for inspection point P3
30% and the pressure of 675 mmHg. along three orthogonal directions under the standard running
Figure 5 presents the time history of the velocity condition (status III). The velocity is obtained from the
derived from the acceleration signals that detected integration of the acceleration signals.

Figure 3. Schematic view of the experimental set up for the vibration tests.

Figure 4. Arrangement of the nine acceleration sensors on the V6 diesel engine: (a) left view; (b) front view; (c) right view. P1-P9
represent the nine inspection locations. Inset shows the actual sensor that assigned to the P5 location.

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10 Journal of Vibration and Control

Table 4. Comparisons of the vibration intensity between the but also guide the design of the mounting system for
experimental measurements and theoretical calculations. certain specific requirements. Though this model was
established basing on the high-speed and heavy-duty
Working status I II III
diesel engine, it should also be suitable to treat a mount-
Experimental (mms1) 10.08 22.04 27.86 ing system with low/medium power engine. Particularly,
Theoretical (mms1) 9.56 21.21 26.77 the delineated dynamics model, optimization algorithms
Relative error (%) 5.43 3.91 4.07 should find wide applications for other different mount-
ing systems, such as power transmission system.

influence from this fact, a number of testing results Funding

were recorded for each working status. The vibration Support from the National Natural Science of China (grant
intensity is then obtained by using the regression ana- number 51275487) and the Natural Science Foundation of
lysis basing on these experimental measurements. As is Shanxi Province of China (grant number 2010011031-2) is
seen in Table 4, under the three typical working sta- greatly acknowledged.
tuses, the calculation results show excellent agreement
with the experimental measurements. For example, the References
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