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SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES 2003-01-1476

Powertrain Mounting Design Principles to

Achieve Optimum Vibration Isolation
with Demonstration Tools
J. Shane Sui, Clarence Hoppe and John Hirshey
DaimlerChrysler Corporation

Noise & Vibration Conference and Exhibition

Traverse City, Michigan
May 5-8, 2003

400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760 Web: www.sae.org
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ISSN 0148-7191
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Powertrain Mounting Design Principles to Achieve Optimum
Vibration Isolation with Demonstration Tools
Copyright 2003 SAE International
ABSTRACT
The way a powertrain is mounted plays an important role
in improving vehicle noise and vibration caused by the
engine firing forces and can be an effective role in
improving vehicle ride comfort. This paper describes the
basic concepts in powertrain mounting and derives a
new concept of evaluating powertrain mounting. It is
well known in publications that a decoupled powertrain
[3][4][6]
mounting system has better NVH characteristics
But how to relate percentage of decouple to powertrain
mounts transmitted forces, what decoupled really
means, and how to evaluate how much it is decoupled
are still ambiguous to many engineers. The traditional
one coordinate system kinetic energy fraction (KEF)
index cant give a clear picture of how much the engine
mounting is decoupled and is often misleading. The new
concept focuses on the excitations acting on the
powertrain system. The KEF index is simulated in
global, engine and torque roll axis (TRA) coordinate
systems, and the evaluation of decoupling is directed to
a specific excitation. The global coordinate KEF index
focuses on road and wheel excitation; the engine
coordinate KEF index focuses on engine cylinder
direction forces and corresponding torques excitation;
and the TRA coordinate KEF index focuses on the
crankshaft torque variation excitation which is critical for
idle isolation.
INTRODUCTION
Powertrain mounting starts with the birth of the
automobile. But up to about 1918, powertrain mounts
were merely strong bolts, which permitted the powertrain
to impart structural stiffness to the frame by making it act
as a chassis crossmember. Nowadays, the similar
mounting scheme can still be seen in race car
engineering, but this kind of mounting is obsolete in the
passenger car industry, because of both durability and
NVH issues. Gradually, the industry went through a
transition from rigid mountings to semi-flexible
mountings by utilizing coil spring spacers and rubber
washers. This helped a lot with durability issues but not
much with NVH issues. After 1920, attempts were made
to utilize the property of rubber to provide isolation and
2003-01-1476
J. Shane Sui, Clarence Hoppe and John Hirshey
DaimlerChrysler Corporation
absorption of engine vibration. In late 1920s, Floating
Power powertrain mounting system was introduced by
Chrysler and it was considered a breakthrough for four
cylinder engines. It was also the first attempt to line up
the elastic axis with the torque roll axis.
In 1950 Riesing summarized the mounting strategy for
19 passenger cars of American manufactures. Elastic
axis alignment to torque roll axis and selecting mount
. locations as center of percussion location are the main
[1]
strategies for improving NVH . From 60s to 90s,
numerous researches has been done mainly on
decoupling the mounting system and separating the
resonance frequencies from engine excitation (1982
Racca Sr., 1984 Geck, 1985 Ford, 1997 Solomon).
Some researchers focused on minimizing vehicle
response or force transmitted to the frame from the
engine. Optimization technique is often used to
minimize the response by adjusting mount parameters
(1993 Bretl). The concern of this method is that it often
needs some detailed vehicle information and that
information may not be available prior to completed
designs.
From both theoretical and practical point of view,
decoupling engine mounting system is a very good
starting point for concept vehicle development. It makes
it much easier to tune the mount stiffness with a full
vehicle FEA model later to improve NVH performance.
However, the decoupling concept was not well described
in many published literatures. The KEF index in one
coordinate system, which is widely used in the
powertrain mounting community, is not an accurate way
to describe mounting decoupling. This paper presents a
new concept of evaluating decoupling in the excitation
direction, which will give a clearer picture of how the
engine responds to a specific excitation.
ASSUMPTIONS
For decoupling purpose, a rigid powertrain is assumed
and it is mounted to the ground. Small displacements
are also assumed, and excitations are assumed to be
either harmonic or periodic of known frequencies.
Mounts are assumed to be tri-axial linear springs with
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proportional viscous (or structural) damping. For center
of percussion mounting (refer to basic concepts 6), the
load is limited to an impulse due to road disturbance.
BASIC CONCEPTS
4.
1. Vehicle coordinate system: Origin is at the front of
the vehicle; positive X direction from front to back;
positive Y direction pointing to the right (from driver
to passenger); and positive Z direction is upwards
(Figure 1). This coordinate system origin is moved
to powertrain Center of Gravity (CG) when KEF
index is calculated.
Z
X
O
Y
Figure 1 Vehicle coordinate system
2. Engine coordinate system: Origin is at the
intersection of crankshaft centerline and
transmission to engine interface; positive x direction
is from transmission to engine and along crankshaft
centerline; positive y direction to the right if looking
along positive x direction; and positive z direction is
downwards (Figure 2). It is possible to have
different engine coordinate systems for the
measured powertrain data, so be careful when
working with powertrain data. This coordinate
system origin will be moved to powertrain CG when
KEF index is calculated.
x mathematical explanation, a simple rigid body
y Crankshaft centerline
z Assuming there is another point Q existing on the
Figure 2 Engine coordinate system
3. Principal moment of inertia (MOI) coordinate
system: Origin at the powertrain CG; x direction is
from transmission to engine and along the minimum
principal moment of inertia axis; y direction is usually
along the maximum principal moment of inertia axis;
and z is downwards and usually along the medium
principal moment of inertia axis (Figure 3).
Torque roll axis coordinate system: Origin at the
powertrain CG; positive x direction is from
transmission to engine and along TRA direction; y
and z can be chosen arbitrary as long as they obey
the right hand rule. Because of the asymmetry of
the powertrain, MOI coordinate system can never be
parallel to the engine coordinate system. So if there
is a small torque fluctuation around the crankshaft
centerline, the powertrain suspended by very soft
springs will tend to rotate around the torque roll axis
(TRA).
Minimum principal MOI
axis--x
Torque roll axis
Crankshaft centerline
Maximum principal MOI z
axis--y Medium principal MOI axis
Figure 3 Principal MOI coordinate system and torque roll axis
5. Elastic axes and elastic center: Elastic axes are
determined only by mount locations, orientations
and stiffness, and have nothing to do with the
powertrain mass properties. If a small static force
(or moment) applied to the rigid body along one
direction results in only displacement (or rotation) of
the rigid body along the same direction, that
direction is defined as one of the elastic axes.
Elastic center is the intersection of the elastic axes.
Elastic axes are defined from the static point of view.
In the static state, the powertrain translational and
angular accelerations are zero. Therefore, the mass
properties are omitted.
6. Center of percussion: Without going into detailed
pendulum is shown here in Figure 4. The pendulum
is suspended at point O and the body CG is point G.
extension of line OG, when the pendulum is
subjected to a force through point Q and
perpendicular to line OQ, there is no reaction force
on suspension point O. Points O and Q are then
referred to as reciprocal centers of percussion,
 Downloaded from SAE International by Istanbul Teknik Universitesi, Thursday, January 26, 2017

which also means point O and point Q are reversible (Figure 5) and some of the results from the ADAMS
[7]
. simulation (Table 1).

O
r
L
G

F
Q Figure 5 ADAMS cranktrain model for 8-cylinder V90 engine

Table 1 Low frequency powertrain load for different types of engines

Figure 4 Center of percussion 2nd order free 1st order free 2nd order free
force moment moment
4-cylinder Big (without 0 0
balance shaft)
5-cylinder 0 small big
r 2 + rG2 6-cylinder(in-line) 0 0 0
L= 12-cylinder(v60,
r 6 throws)
rG : is the gyration radius about G 6-cylinder(v60, 6 0 Big, can be medium
throws) balanced
IG 8-cylinder(v90, 4 0 Big, can be 0
rG = throws) balanced
m
I G : is the moment of inertia about G
m : is the mass
DECOUPLING CONCEPT

Our design objective is to reduce engine vibration

EXCITATIONS ON THE POWERTRAIN
The powertrain system is excited by engine firing force,
rotating/reciprocating unbalances, road profile, and
dynamic forces/motions transmitted by accessories and
other vehicle components. The main excitations are an
internal oscillating torque on the crankshaft; internal
forces in cylinder direction and corresponding moments;
and excitations from road and wheels.
While the crankshaft oscillating torque will always occur
at the firing frequency, the other direction of engine
excitation will depend on the engine types. ADAMS
cranktrain models for different types of engines are built
to determine the significant loads of the engine besides
crankshaft torque. Since our concern is in low frequency
coupling in certain frequency range with respect to
certain engine excitations and to reduce vehicle vibration
subjected to road and wheels excitation by tuning the
mounts. Taking one excitation at a time, crankshaft
torque excitation for an example, it is preferable if it only
excites one pure mode with one natural frequency.
There are two advantages. First, there is only one
frequency that needs concern, i.e. design to move this
frequency away from the excitation frequency, such as
idle frequency. While if there are several frequencies, it
is very hard to separate those frequencies from the
excitation frequency. Second, some powertrain Degree
of Freedom (DOF) and some frequencies are sensitive
to vehicle structure. So if several powertrain DOFs and
several frequencies are excited instead of only one, it is
likely to produce the so-called structural nervousness .
[5]

range, cranktrain components are modeled as rigid

bodies. Firing forces acting on the cylinder head are It seems easy to understand why a decoupled
cancelled out by their reaction forces on the main powertrain mounting system is better. But how to
bearing. Engine load will be mainly determined by the evaluate if a mounting system is decoupled is not very
cranktrain inertia forces. The followings are the model explicit. Traditionally, modal analysis is run to calculate
 Downloaded from SAE International by Istanbul Teknik Universitesi, Thursday, January 26, 2017
the KEF index of one coordinate system normally engine
coordinate system, and the percentage of the KEF at
certain DOF was considered as the percentage of
decoupling at that DOF. This method is not a good way
to evaluate decoupling and it is often misleading.
Decoupling should be related to a specific excitation.
For translational (force) decoupling, 100% or as high as
possible KEF index is preferable in the excitation
direction which may or may not be one of the engine
coordinate system DOFs. For rotational (moment)
decoupling, 100% or as high as possible KEF index is
preferable in the moment roll axis defined by the
moment direction and the engine principal moment of
inertia information. For an example, in order to decouple
the crankshaft torque, 100% or as high as possible KEF
index is needed in the TRA direction. But the TRA
direction is not one of the DOFs of the engine coordinate
system. So the KEF index in engine coordinate system
DOFs dont convey the percentage of decoupling for all
the excitations.
MOUNTING PRINCIPLES
No matter how well the engine is designed, there is
always crankshaft torque excitation caused by the firing
force. Especially when the engine idles, this torque
excitation frequency is closer to the mount frequencies,
so it is important to decouple this mode and lower its
natural frequency away from the idle frequency. In order
to check that, modal analysis must be run in TRA
coordinate system. The KEF index in TRA direction
should be close to 100% and the natural frequency of
that mode should be much lower than the idle frequency.
For road and tire input, a similar modal analysis should
be run in car coordinate system. The KEF index in Z
direction should be as high as possible to improve
vehicle ride. In cases where good decoupling can not be
achieved, the engine bounce frequency should be lower
than wheel hop to avoid exciting multi-modes of engine
vibration.
To evaluate cylinder direction forces and corresponding
torques decoupling, modal analysis should be run in the
engine coordinate system. Refer to previous section
excitations of the powertrain, the KEF index need to be
high only in concerned excitation direction. The
frequencies should be away from body resonance
frequencies if they are available.
From the definition of center of percussion (Figure 4), if
mounts are chosen close to the center of percussion of
the powertrain, an impulse to one mount from the road
disturbance results in little or no reaction at the other
mounts. This improves the overall isolation performance
of the mounting system with respect to impulse inputs,
since less vibration input is imparted to the body of the
[7]
vehicle . This technique does not address the harmonic
response of the system and is therefore supplemental to
the criteria described above.
There are many different problems and concerns for
different engines and vehicle programs. Engine
mounting of front wheel drive vehicles is much different
from rear wheel drive vehicles. Four cylinder engines
have bigger excitations compared with six or eight
cylinder engines. It is hard to derive general criteria for
all programs. Besides the main issues addressed
previously, engine mounting does have influence on
vehicle impact, shuffle, lateral vibration, handling, etc.
Often, all these criteria conflict with each other. A multi-
displinary optimization will be very useful to balance all
the trade offs.
MOUNTING METHODS TO DECOUPLE
CRANKSHAFT TORQUE
At early vehicle development stage, there is a lot of
freedom to mount the powertrain. Some rules-of-thumb
help engineers to determine the starting point of a
powertrain mounting system. But be careful when using
these rules-of-thumb, because they may have
limitations.
Aligning elastic axis with crankshaft centerline:
Since the torque variation is on the crankshaft, it is
easy to think that the torque will be decoupled if
the mounts elastic axis is lined up with the
crankshaft centerline. It is true for a static case,
which means the powertrain will only rotate around
the crankshaft centerline if the system is subjected
to a static torque on the crankshaft. Since it is very
hard to manually line up the elastic axis with certain
axis (i.e. crankshaft centerline) in three dimensional
space, there are some simplified methods to
achieve that. Taking two engine mounts and one
transmission mount for an example, the
transmission mount can be put on the crankshaft
centerline, then the two front mounts can be
inclined in such a way that the combined effective
mount locates on the crankshaft centerline. In
detail, the inclining angle of the front mounts should
meet the following equation(Figure 6):
Crankshaft centerline
h ( L 1) tan
=
w L tan 2 + 1
h kc ks
and L = k c / k s
w w
Figure 6 Inclining mounts to crankshaft centerline in 2 D
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Unfortunately this method will not work because
NVH issues are strongly dynamic, and statically
decoupling has little to do with dynamic
decoupling. Also the lateral motion at the top of the
engine will be amplified because the mounts are
usually too low.
Aligning elastic axes with principal MOI axes:
The idea is to line up elastic axes with the principal
MOI axes. Inclining mounts method in 2-D using
the above equation can still be applied. A general
method is to optimize the mount parameters by
minimizing the off-diagonal terms of stiffness matrix
in principal MOI coordinate system. But this
method can not give a 100% decoupling as long as
the crankshaft is not parallel to the minimum
principal axis. As an example, if all the elastic axes
coincide with the principal axes, which means the
stiffness matrix in principal MOI coordinate system
only has diagonal terms, the system will be 100%
decoupled in the principal axes direction. The
torque along crankshaft can be expressed as three
torque components along the three principal axes,
thus the crankshaft torque variation can excite
three modes at three frequencies (Figure 7). It is
true that this method derives a good engine
mounting system which partially decouples the
crankshaft torque excitation but it is certainly not
the best one that only excites one mode at only one
frequency.
Figure 7 Frequency response of powertrain CG in principal MOI
coordinate system with only crankshaft torque excitation
Aligning elastic axis to torque roll axis (TRA):
The logic is that since the powertrain will rotate
along the TRA when subjected to a torque variation
along crankshaft without mount constraints,
decoupling will be achieved if the mounting elastic
axis coincides with the TRA. But unfortunately this
method can not completely decouple the crankshaft
torque excitation as shown in Figure 8.
100% decoupling along TRA: The idea for real
TRA decoupling is to let the engine static
response to a crankshaft torque be along the TRA
direction or the KEF index in TRA direction is
100%. Note that these are different from lining up
the elastic axis with the TRA. While there is no
simple equation for inclining mounts for TRA
decoupling, with a MATLAB program called Engine
Mount Analysis (EMA), user can manually change
mounting parameters and check the KEF index in
different coordinate systems for different
decoupling. Optimization is often used to search
optimum mounting parameters by maximizing the
KEF index in TRA direction.
If the KEF index in the TRA direction (x direction in
TRA coordinate system) is 100%, the powertrain
system has a frequency response only in the TRA
direction with the crankshaft torque variation
excitation in all frequency range. The system has
only one resonance frequency which is the TRA
mode frequency (Figure 8).
Figure 8 Frequency response of powertrain CG in TRA coordinate
system with only crankshaft torque excitation
OPTIMIZATION OF ENGINE MOUNT PARAMETERS
Engine Mount Analysis program (EMA) was originally a
side product of the Chrysler Challenge Fund through
Ohio State University. Technical Computer Center
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(TCC) of DaimlerChrysler has modified, maintained and

added more features to the program. It is running in
MATLAB environment with easy to use GUI interface CONCLUSION
and database file system. Even though EMA is very
efficient for user to check different mounting system, 1. Decoupled powertrain mounting system has pure
many times it is still hard for user to figure out what the response with a single frequency subjected to a
best mounting parameters will be. Optimization can be specific excitation. Thus the NVH characteristic is
run either inside Matlab using Matlab optimization generally better for decoupled system.
module or using an outside optimizer like
Engineous/Isight. Generally speaking, using an outside 2. Decoupling is defined with respect to a specific
optimizer has some advantages. The user doesnt need excitation. Decoupling is only necessary when
to be very familiar with Matlab; it is very easy to specify there is a big excitation on that direction.
the constraints and objective function; you can do Monte
Carlo simulation or DOE; and you often have more 3. Engine mount analysis program together with
optimization methods choices. Above all, it can be optimization program help the user to quickly
easily linked to other simulation for multi-displinary optimize the mount parameters to achieve better
optimization. decoupling or lower responses for different
excitations.
The objective function of mount optimization can be the
TRA KEF index or frequency response at certain ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
frequency (with respect to engine firing order). It can
also be combined with packaging simulation for multi- The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Joeng and
displinary optimization. However, the examples in this Professor Singh for their preliminary work on EMA; Mike
paper are limited to dynamic decoupling. Aligning elastic Sawdon, Mike Rizzo and Chrysler Engine Mount Tech
axes with principal MOI axes is done by minimizing the Club for their support.
off-diagonal terms of the stiffness matrix in principal MOI
axes coordinate system. Aligning elastic axis to TRA is REFERENCES
done by minimizing the off-diagonal terms of the
stiffness matrix in TRA coordinate system. 100% 1. Riesing, Ellwood, Resilient mountings for
decoupling along TRA is done by maximizing the KEF Passenger-Car Powerplants, SAE Quarterly
index in the TRA direction. Engineous/Isight is used to Transaction, January 1950, Vol 4 No.1.
link EMA solver to do the optimization. The following is a
flow chart of the process (Figure 9). 2. Racca, R., How to Select Power-Train Isolators for
Good Performance and Long Service Life, SAE
Technical Paper No. 821095.

3. Geck, P.E., et al, Front Wheel Drive Engine Mount

Optimization, SAE Technical Paper No. 840736.

4. Ford, David, An Analysis and Application of a

Decoupled Engine Mount System for Idle Isolation,
SAE Technical Paper No. 850976.

5. Solomon, A., Engine Mount system Focusing to

Reduce Vehicle Shake, SAE Technical Paper No.
973273.

6. Joeng, Taeseok, Analysis of Powertrain Mounts

with Focus on Torque Roll Axis Decoupling and
Frequency-Dependent Properties, Ph.D.
Dissertation, Ohio State University, 2000.

7. Bretl, John, Optimization of Engine Mounting

Systems to Minimize Vehicle Vibration, SAE
Technical Paper No. 931322.

8. Brach, Matthew, Automotive Powerplant Isolation

Strategies, SAE Technical Paper No. 971942.
Figure 9 Engine mounting optimization flow chart