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In order to efficiently enhance engine sound quality under acceleration, the authors have developed an evaluation method for primary judgment of the sound quality of engine combustion noise at the stage of advanced engine development before the prototype vehicle is built. This method is an application of an existing method for evaluating the sound quality of engine combustion noise in vehicle interiors to the evaluation of noise and vibration at an engine acoustic test bench. In this method, it is necessary to consider the air-borne and the structure-borne components separately. The analysis procedure for the air-borne component is as follows. First, the sound pressure at a point 1 m away from the engine and the in-cylinder pressure of each cylinder are measured simultaneously in a semi-anechoic engine dynamometer test chamber. Next, the signal correlated with engine combustion is extracted from the measured sound pressure using the time domain combustion noise separation method.

This report will introduce a new engine sound design concept and propose a design process. In sound design for automotive development of popular vehicles, it is common to seek to enhance the state of the existing marketed vehicle in order to meet further demands from customers. For standout models such as sports vehicles and flagship vehicles, sound design commonly reflects the sound ideals of the manufacturer’s branding or engineers. Each case has common point that the sound direction is determined by itself clearly. However, in this way, it is difficult to create abstract concept sound. Because it is no direction for the sound. Therefore, this paper examines ways to achieve a new sound that satisfies a sound concept based on an unprecedented abstract concept “wood”. The reason why sound concept is “wood”, it is the difficult to make as a new engine sound and good study to reveal usefulness of new sound design process.

Operational analysis of automotive engines using flexible multi-body dynamics is increasingly important from the viewpoint of multi-objective optimization as it can predict not only vibration, but also stress and friction at the same time. Still, the finite element (FE) models used in this analysis have large degrees-of-freedom, so iterative calculation takes a lot of time when there is form change. This research therefore describes a technique that applies a modal differential substructure method (a technique that reduces the degrees of freedom in a FE model) that can simulate form changes in FE models by changing modal mass and modal stiffness in reduced models. By using this method, non-parametric form change in FE model can be parametrically simulated, so it is possible to speed up repeated vibration calculations. In the proposed method, FE model is finely divided for each form change design area, and a reduced model of that divided structure is created.

To achieve lightweight, low friction and fuel efficient engine, the crankshaft is required to be designed lightweight, small-diameter shaft, long stroke. In this case, vibration of the crankshaft is increased by reduction of shaft stiffness. The conventional way of dealing with this increased vibration used to be to add an inertia mass ring or a double mass damper. Such an approach, however, increases weight, making the balance of weight reduction and vibration reduction less readily achieved. This paper therefore reports on how the main factors causing crankshaft vibration to increase in the shaft with reduced stiffness were clarified. Based on that clarification, efforts were made to reduce crankshaft vibration without increasing the weight of the crankshaft system. Measurement and analysis were used to analyze crankshaft vibration during operation.