Application of evolutionary computation in automotive powertrain mount tuning

Abstract

Engine mount tuning is a multi-disciplinary exercise since it affects Idle-shake, Road-shake and power-train noise response. Engine inertia is often used as a tuned absorber for controlling suspension resonance related road-shake issues. Last but not least, vehicle ride and handling may also be affected by mount tuning. In this work, Torque-Roll-Axis (TRA) decoupling of the rigid powertrain was used as a starting point for mount tuning. Nodal point of flexible powertrain bending was used to define the envelop for transmission mount locations. The frequency corresponding to the decoupled roll mode of the rigid powertrain was then adjusted for idle-shake and road-shake response management. A TRA decoupling procedure, cast as a multi-objective optimization problem, was applied to a body-on-frame sport-utility vehicle powertrain system. In addition to a standard gradient based optimization algorithm, available in commercial finite element software, an evolutionary computation paradigm known as Evolutionary Strategies (ES) was used to solve the optimization problem. The primary advantages of evolutionary computation over gradient based algorithms are as follows: i) They are less likely to get trapped in local minima and less dependent on initial values of the design parameters and therefore able to handle multi-modal optimization problems unlike gradient based algorithms, ii) They produce a population of viable solutions, unlike gradient based algorithms which yields a single solution. The second advantage is very attractive in a production environment since packaging and other multi-disciplinary constraints often require multiple quality solutions for the same problem. The process outlined in this work was verified by exercising a full-vehicle finite element model. The process produced a set of production feasible powertrain mount parameters for acceptable idle and road shake performance. © 2006 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.