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For any combustion engine, balance has always been important regardless of types of cylinder layout. One of the disadvantages of the inline four engines is the second-order unbalanced forces, which leads to high-frequency excitation of vehicle’s structure and consequent internal noise. Balance shaft modules (BSM) are often used in inline-four engines, to reduce the second-order vibration and mitigate engine imbalance. Balance shafts are often running at light load and high-speed condition which could induce both gear rattle and gear whine from the BSM gear set. Typically, scissor gear set is used between crankshaft and BSM to reduce the gear rattle noise. However, a poor scissor gear design could easily lead to unpleasant gear whine noise. There is an increasing trend to shorten development cycles and reduce cost using simulation models. This paper discusses an analytical method to simulate gear whine and rattle generated by engine BSM.

The American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. driveline dynamometer provides immense value for experimental validation of product NVH performances. It has been intensively used to evaluate product design robustness in terms of build variations, mileage accumulation, and temperature sensitivity. The current driveline dynamometer input motor system has multiple torsional modes which create strong coupling with test part gear mesh dynamics. Mechanical Engineering seniors at Lawrence Technological University designed, fabricated, and validated a mechanism to decouple the driveline dynamics from the driveline dynamometer dynamics. The student-designed decoupler mechanism is presented with experimental validation of effectiveness in decoupling driveline dynamometer dynamics from the driveline under test.