Design Concept of a Crankshaft for Reduction of Main Bearings Power Losses and a Deep Skirt Engine Block Load

This paper presents a method for effective design of the crankshaft counterweights with respect to the engine block load due to inertia effects of the crank train rotating parts. The method finds the relationship between internal product moments of inertia of the crank train and the middle main bearing load, since the middle main bearing area can be highly affected by the dynamic effects especially when the engine operating speed is high. In order to investigate the dynamic response of the excited crank train, a computational model based on Multi-Body System is used. The simulation model contains modally reduced flexible bodies and hydrodynamic submodels of main and crank bearings. Described methodology is applied to an innovative design concept of a crankshaft with reduced main bearing power losses and an engine block load.