Multibody Modelling of Engine and Minimization of Engine Mount Vibration Using Ant Colony Algorithm Optimization

In this research work, multibody modelling of engine is carried out and the elastomeric mounts are used to isolate the vibration caused in the diesel engine during its running. Vibration in the engine is measured as displacement at the engine mounts and the reduction of vibration displacement provides both the passive isolation and balancing of unbalanced forces in the engine. The elastomeric mounts not only provide the passive isolation but also the supplement the force balancing system. The engine dynamic vibration force components like inertial forces by moving components and piston slap is modelled and resolved in the Cartesian coordinates. The set of equations arrived are solved to find the displacement at the mounts using Runge-Kutta method for a specific period. The mount location and orientation are used as the optimizing parameters that minimize the mount displacement. The optimization is carried out using one of the most promising heuristic optimization methods called ant colony algorithm (ACA). The convergence and least possible results of the ACA based optimization are obtained for different control parameters of the ACA.