A method for crankshaft balancing: theory development and numerical implementation

In the modern and continuously evolving automotive environment, it has become imperative to design and manufacture internal combustion engines which are more efficient and reliable. To this end, one fundamental process that is becoming of increased interest is the dynamic balancing of the engines. Such design operation requires the careful measurement and placing of additional masses, which contribute to reduce or eliminate the deformation of the crankshaft, which is the component more affected by this phenomenon. Such process allows not only to improve the reliability of the engine but also to reduce the vibrations generated, with consequent increased comfort for the passengers of the vehicle. However, due to the wide variety of engines that are used today and the precision that is required, the balancing process can be quite complex to be carried out in short time. Starting from a kinematic and dynamic analysis of the crankshaft, what this work tries to accomplish is, then, to create a MATLAB tool, with an easy-to-use user-interface, capable of automatically compute the fundamental parameters needed to correctly balance an internal combustion engine, including the masses and geometry of the elements to be added directly onto the crankshaft and onto the balancing shafts. Such tool will be able to perform this process for almost any kind of engine that user wants to balance, also guaranteeing the proper outputs necessary to check that the process was correctly performed. So, thanks to this tool, a potential designer will be capable of providing a preliminary analysis of the balancing needs of an internal combustion engine, both in terms of masses and minimum dimensions.