The new generations of compact high output power-to-weight ratio internal combustion engines generate broadband torsional oscillations, transmitted to lightly damped drivetrain systems. A novel approach to mitigate these untoward vibrations can be the use of nonlinear absorbers. These act as Nonlinear Energy Sinks (NESs). The NES is coupled to the primary (drivetrain) structure, inducing passive irreversible targeted energy transfer (TET) from the drivetrain system to the NES. During this process, the vibration energy is directed from the lower-frequency modes of the structure to the higher ones. Thereafter, vibrations can be either dissipated through structural damping or consumed by the NES. This paper uses a lumped parameter model of an automotive driveline to simulate the effect of TET and the assumed modal energy redistribution. Significant redistribution of vibratory energy is observed through TET. Furthermore, the integrated optimization process highlights the most effective configuration and parametric evaluation for use of NES.

This paper was published as Open Access by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) Licence 4.0Torsional vibrations transmitted from the engine to the drivetrain system induce a plethora of noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) concerns such a transmission gear rattle and clutch in-cycle vibration, to name but a few. The main elements of these oscillations are variations in the inertial imbalance and the constituents of combustion power torque, collectively referred to as engine order vibration. To attenuate the effect of these transmitted vibration and their oscillatory effects in the drive train system, a host of palliative measures are employed in practice, such as clutch pre-dampers, slipping disks, dual mass flywheel and others, all of which operate effectively over a narrow band of frequencies and have various unintended repercussions. These include increased powertrain inertia, installation package space and cost. This paper presents a numerical study of the use of multiple Nonlinear Energy Sinks (NES) as a means of attenuating the torsional oscillations for an extended frequency range and under transient vehicle manoeuvres. Frequency-Energy Plots (FEP) are used to obtain the nonlinear absorber parameters for multiple NES coupled in parallel to the clutch disc of a typical drivetrain configuration. The results obtained show significant reduction in the oscillations of the transmission input shaft, effective over a broad range of response frequencies. It is also noted that the targeted reduction of the acceleration amplitude of the input shaft requires significantly lower NES inertia, compared with the existing palliative measures

This paper was published by Elsevier as an Open Access article under the CC BY NC ND 4.0 International licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Prediction of load capacity and friction depends on the assumed boundary conditions. The inlet comprises swirl and counter flows, admitting only a portion of the inward flow into the conjunctional gap. At the contact exit, the lubricant film ruptures with multi-phase flow through a cavitation region. Therefore, the boundary conditions affect the load carrying capacity and friction. A Navier–Stokes solution of multi-phase flow, including vapour transport is presented, with determined realistic boundary conditions.\ud \ud The evaluated boundaries agree with potential flow analysis satisfying compatibility conditions, not hitherto reported in literature. The investigation is extended to the determination of optimum compression ring contacting geometry

The paper describes a combined tribodynamics analysis (dynamics and contact tribology) of cylindrical roller bearings of a heavy duty truck transmission under high applied loads. The dynamic analysis provides the transient variations in contact load. It also determines the vibration spectrum of the bearing as well as that of contact dynamics. It is shown that with sufficient preloading and/or interference fitting a widely spread loaded region results, which reduces bearing-induced vibration. The transient tribological analysis, including thermal analysis with a novel and realistic lubricant inlet boundary condition demonstrates that non-Newtonian mixed elastohydrodynamic regime of lubrication is prevalent, but with reduced friction compared with unrealistic dry Coulombic friction, which is often assumed in literature.

Only the accepted version of the paper is currently available. We will replace the accepted version with the published version once this is available. This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Thermo-mixed-hydrodynamics of compression rings and big-end bearings are presented. Frictional losses under normal engine operating conditions for a gasoline engine and those with cylinder deactivation (CDA) are predicted. With CDA, the combustion chamber pressure increases in the active cylinders, whilst some residual pressure remains in the deactivated ones. For the former, the increased in-cylinder temperatures reduce viscous friction, whilst reducing the load carrying capacity, promoting increased boundary interactions. In deactivated cylinders, lower contact temperatures yield increased viscous friction. Overall, a 5% improvement in expended fuel is expected with the application of CDA. However, 10% of these gains are expended due to increased friction. The study demonstrates the need to consider total system effects when introducing new technologies such as CDA