Experimental Investigation on Gear Rattle Noise Reduction in Passenger Car

Gear rattle noise reduction inside the passenger cabin is one of the major challenges for customer comfort enhancement. Therefore, it becomes a prime target during transmission design and development. Gear rattle is generated due to meshing teeth collision of free gears, which is caused due to torsional vibration of engine transferred through clutch. Vibrations are generated due to free gears teeth impact and are transferred to shaft, bearings and transmission housing. The sound absorption and structural vibration of transmission housing was optimized by changing the geometrical features of the transmission housing that affects radiated noise.

Experimental approach for gear rattle noise reduction through transmission housing modification is described in this paper. Moreover, CAE method is also incorporated with the experiments for optimization of future vehicle transmission system designs.