Vibration suppression of a car engine frame via tuned vibration absorber design

Whole body vibration degrades passengers' ride comfort which significantly affects their perception towards overall vehicle quality and induces health concerning issues under long term exposure. Motivated by the qualitative perception of whole body vibration experienced by the users during vehicle ride, this paper focuses on the vibration characterisation of a car engine frame and proposes a design and implementation of a tuned vibration absorber (TVA) as the vibration attenuation solution in addressing the vertical vibrations which are most perceived at the idling condition. TVA with frequency intentionally detuned to avoid exciting the 2nd structural resonance throughout the nominal engine idle operating frequency results in a vibration acceleration amplitude reduction of 30.3% at the 2nd order. The result shows that TVA is effective in attenuating tonal vibration at a particular troublesome frequency such as the 2nd order tonal vibration commonly experienced by conventional inline 4-cylinder engines.