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Vibration isolation with clutch disk pre-damper mechanism for the idle rattle
phenomenon

Article  in  Journal of Vibration and Control · August 2016

DOI: 10.1177/1077546316662413

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Article
Journal of Vibration and Control
1–17

Vibration isolation with clutch disk ! The Author(s) 2016

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pre-damper mechanism for the DOI: 10.1177/1077546316662413
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idle rattle phenomenon

Alis an Yüces an and Semih Sezer

Abstract
In this paper, the influence of clutch disk pre-damper mechanism constituents on the idle rattle phenomenon was
investigated with an analytical model containing a new time-varying gear mesh stiffness function. Comparing experimental
results to simulation results for the same excitation input was the key implementation for the validation of proposed
model. The engine speed fluctuations represented in the simulation was imported from a speed measurement of a diesel
engine in the test bench.

Keywords
engine speed fluctuations, torsional vibrations, gear rattle, clutch pre-damper mechanism, idle rattle, powertrain vibra-
tions, time-varying gear mesh stiffness function

as a result of these studies, two different types of

1. Introduction
In recent decades, studies on the increasing internal com-
bustion engine’s efficiency has been intensified on the
concept of reaching higher torque values with lower
fuel consumption by reducing the number of cylinders
and working at low speed range by decreasing engine
idle speed. Downsizing and downspeeding are the con-
cepts but, aforementioned improvements require sophis-
ticated solutions for powertrain vibration isolation as
well, especially for diesel engines and direct injection
engines, where higher torque values create higher speed
fluctuations mainly coming from combustion process
results in excessive vibrations in the vehicle’s powertrain
system. These vibrations are not only detrimental to the
powertrain and lead to increased fuel consumption,
owing to need for elevated engine idle speed, but also
causing an explicit, distinctly audible, irritating noise for
the drivers and passengers inside cab.
The transmission noise can occur as creeping and
drive rattle noise at driving condition, where the trans-
mission is engaged in a gear, and also at idle-neutral
position as idle rattle noise (De la Cruz et al., 2010).
Idle rattle noise has been theoretically and experi-
mentally researched by many authors for the
years. Multi-different results and various analytic
models were disclosed for this phenomenon. So far,
solution were summed up and implemented in the auto-
motive industry to cease the vibrations in the trans-
mission. The first precaution is applied from inside
of the transmission by changing gear construction
geometry and by the lubricant used to dampen impact-
ing of gear teeth meshing. The second precaution which
is carried out from the outside of the transmission has
two alternative approaches for vibration isolation;
employing a vibration damper mechanism in a clutch
disk, as analyzed in this study, and secondly increasing
the input shaft’s mass moment of inertia with dual
mass flywheel (DMF). Even if DMF is recently the
more effective solution for filtering torsional vibrations
than the conventional method containing solid fly-
wheel and pre-dampered clutch disk, the conventional
system is still the most used application on accounts
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Istanbul Technical University,
Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University,
Turkey
Received: 12 May 2015; accepted: 2 July 2016
Corresponding author:
Alis an Yüces an, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Istanbul
Technical University, 34469, Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey.
Email: yucesana15@itu.edu.tr

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2 Journal of Vibration and Control
of the functionality, cost and spacing restrictions for
the smaller engines in passenger cars and light commer-
cial vehicles (Fidlin and Seebacher, 2006; Reik, 1998).
Rattling is generated by torsional vibrations
on unloaded gears (Kim and Singh, 2001). The teeth
of the driven gear are free to impact with the teeth of
the driving gear both on the driving side and on the
driven side. It emerges if the oscillatory inertial torque
on the driven gear exceeds the drag torque which keeps
it in contact with its driver gear. There are numerous
papers dealing with the phenomenon in literature.
It was experimentally and numerically described in
order to find out the most significant parameters influ-
encing on the rattle (Barthod et al., 2007; Brancati
et al., 2009). How gear specifications change the rattle
noise (Bozca, 2010; Bozca and Fietkau, 2010) and the
importance of lubricant with backlash variation
(Brancati et al., 2005, 2007; Rocca and Russo, 2011;
Tangasawi et al., 2008) were studied by various
authors. The conceptual framework of damper mech-
anism in clutch disk such as, multi stage damper mech-
anisms and hysteresis effect, in addition to influence
of the dual mass flywheel on the phenomenon were
also investigated with non-linear models (Gaillard and
Singh, 2000; Michael et al., 2002; Miyasato et al., 2011;
Reik, 1998; Singh et al., 1989; Tsujiuchi et al., 2012;
Wang et al., 2001). There is a consensus on phenom-
enon agents which are outlined as; engine torque char-
acteristics, clutch disk pre-damper torsion characteristic
consisting of spring rate, hysteresis and angular travel,
inertia of flywheel-clutch cover-clutch disk-shafts and
gears in the gearbox, backlash between input shaft
spline and clutch disk hub spline, backlash between
driving gear and unloaded driven gears, oil viscosity
in the gearbox, drag torque from churning, bearing
Figure 1. Clutch disk components (Luk clutch course, 2012).
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and synchronizers. It was commonly stated that idle
rattle can be avoided as long as the drag torque on
the unloaded gears is higher than the oscillatory inertial
torque on the gears.
In all this research, various types of stiffness func-
tions such as time-based or non-time-based functions
for calculating gear mesh stiffness were proposed for
numeric analysis (Cai, 1995; Dion et al., 2009;
Umezawa et al., 1986). Gear mesh stiffness was add-
itionally investigated with the time-consuming finite
element method besides analytical ways in the litera-
ture. In this study, a new time-varying gear mesh stiff-
ness function is presented. In contradistinction to
relative movements of gears as used in literature, a dif-
ferent analysis method that comprises changes in tran-
sition of fluctuating speed amplitudes coming from
engine to input shaft through clutch damper as clutch
manufacturers frequently apply (Fidlin and Seebacher,
2006) was utilized for investigation.
2. Powertrain model
A clutch disk generally has two type damper mechan-
isms which are main damper mechanism for vehicle
driving condition, and pre-damper mechanism for idle
condition. Each mechanism comprises single-stage
or multi-stage ordered spring sets with their own
inner friction control systems depending on the appli-
cation requirements to provide diverse damper effects
on the driveline while transmitting different torque
amplitudes for the vehicle operating conditions. The
pre-damper spring set and its friction control system
modulates the powertrain in idle condition and imme-
diately becomes fully compressed at the relevant engine
torques. It is also used to prevent take-off rattle
Yüces an and Sezer
and chassis-noise by laying down eigen-frequency below
idle speed which is beyond the scope of this study.
Although, it is a very practical and widespread approach
in this field, the pre-dampered type clutch disk is a
restricted practice to tune the vibration problems in vehi-
cle transmissions at higher engine torque fluctuations.
In a clutch disk, the coil springs are positioned in
windows of retainer plates and actuated by a hub and a
flange combination with a limited angular displacement
between flywheel and gearbox input shaft through hub
flange’s teeth as illustrated in Figure 1. The pre-damper
mechanism has three constituents to assure vibration
isolation. The obtained torque from springs’ deflection
per angle, spring rate, and the amount of angular dis-
placements of disk hub, angle, as well as friction force
generating non-linear hysteretic effect in the mechan-
ism, are the parameters to define a torsion characteristic
to damp engine speed fluctuations. Pre-damper springs
or idle torque dampers, acts as a small shock absorber
to lessen the torsional irregularities stimulated by inter-
nal combustion engines that leads to an undesirable
noise in the gearbox. But variations in the excitation
and also in the friction unit do not permit an optimal
damping performance.
Figure 2. Clutch damper torsion characteristic representation.
Figure 3. Vibration isolation schematic (ZF Sachs, 2014).
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3
Owing to every powertrain has its own distinctive
traits, torsional dampers are independently needed to
be adapted ranging from a single-stage to high cost
multi-stage solutions for individual application’s
requirements. In this study, a single-stage pre-damper
mechanism was handled and its torsion characteristic is
represented in Figure 2. From Ø1 to Ø2 and Ø3 to Ø4
regions are main damper stages and H2 is main damper
hysteresis torque while Ø2 to Ø3 region is pre-damper
stage and H1 is pre-damper hysteresis torque. The
main-damper, i.e. full load damper, spring set remains
functionally uncompressed, i.e. passive, in the idle oper-
ation, therefore, it was neglected in the model.
It is assumed that engine idle speed oscillates around
a constant mean value representing effective speed
as schematically shown in a Figure 3. In general,
for the transition of these speed amplitudes, 60 rpm in
the peak to peak amplitudes of oscillations at input
shaft speed is the upper limit for accepting a gearbox
still silent.
The powertrain setup in test bench was configured to
a lumped analytic model as shown in the Figure 4b
from its actual version given in Figure 4a. In this con-
version process, some assumptions were implemented
in the model as listed below:
. The backlash between clutch hub spline and gearbox
input shaft spline was neglected, and the clutch disk
hub’s mass moment of inertia was added to input
shaft inertia.
. The gears in the gearbox was divided into two
groups; all the gears on the input shaft with input
shaft inertia was stacked up to a driving gear, and all
the gears on the output shaft without output shaft
inertia was stacked up to a driven gear to compose a
gear couple.
. It was assumed that the gearbox and engine was
connected to each other just from input shaft and
clutch disk hub splines in order to ignore the other
types of vibrations coming from engine and the test
bench frame.
4 Journal of Vibration and Control

Figure 4. a. Actual powertrain model of the test bench for idle rattle analysis. b. Lumped powertrain model for idle rattle analysis.

. The eccentricity between input and output shafts’
gears and friction in the shafts’ bearings was also
neglected.
. The heat changes in the system was neglected. The oil
viscosity in the gearbox was assumed to be constant.
. Engine speed fluctuations were represented with a
measurement from test bench instead of generic
one as used in literature, mass moment inertias of
the solid flywheel, clutch cover and disk except disk
hub inertia were neglected as a result.
Equations of motion of the powertrain which is
depicted in Figure 4b derived by applying Lagrange’s
equations (Yüces an, 2014);
I1 :€1 þ Kc : ð1  2 Þ þ hc :ð_1  _2 Þ ¼ Te
I1 is the moment of inertia for flywheel, clutch pres-
sure plate and clutch disk without hub, Kc is idle dam-
pers’ spring rate, hc is hysteresis rate and Te represents
engine torque function.
I2 :€2  Kc :ð1  2 Þ þ Kt :R2 :ð2 :R2  3 :R3  bðxr Þ  eðtÞÞ
 hc :ð_1  _2 Þ þ C2 :_2 þ Cy :R2 :ð_2 :R2  _3 :R3  eðtÞ
_ Þ¼0
ð2Þ
I2 is the moment of inertia of driving gear, R2 is
pitch radius of driving gear, e(t) indicates the transmis-
sion error, Cy is teeth damping coefficient.
I3 :€3  Kt :R3 :ð2 :R2  3 :R3  bðxr Þ  eðtÞÞ
  ð3Þ
ð1Þ  Cy :R3 : _2 :R2  _3 :R3  eðtÞ
_ þ C3 :_3 ¼ 0

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Yüces an and Sezer 5

Table 1. Gear-pair specifications.

Driving Driven
gear gear

Number of teeth 28 37
Face width (mm) 22 22
Pitch radius (mm) 41.5 54.5
Pressure angle (deg.) 30
Helix angle (deg.) 30
Module 3
Transverse contact ratio 1.43
Total contact ratio 2.79

meshing period. Hence, it is not eligible to calculate

total meshing stiffness of every gear tooth pair contribu-
tions throughout whole simulation time. The function
Figure 5. Rattling gear pair schematic.
was expanded to calculate all tooth pair meshing
for the whole simulation time (t) as explained below.
I3 and R3 are the moment of inertia and pitch radius The simulation result of the total gear mesh stiffness
of driven gear respectively. with new time base function is introduced in Figure 8.

eðtÞ ¼ e1 :cosð:t þ a1 Þ þ e2 :cosð2:_2 :t þ a2 Þ ð4Þ tz ¼

2:
, meshing time period ð7Þ
w:z
The model comprises a rattling gear pair given in  
Figure 5 which has the vibro-impact behavior. As pre- total number of tooth
p ¼ roundð"Þ,
viously stated, all the gears on the input shaft was in the contact at the same time
lumped to a driving gear, and all the gears on the ð8Þ
output shaft was lumped to a driven gear to compose
 
a gear couple and their properties declared in Table 1. coefficient for calculating delay
The relative displacement along the contact line was m ¼ 0 : 1 : ðpÞ,
time for each tooth pair meshing
denoted by xr , bðxr Þ indicates backlash length found
ð9Þ
between the gear tooth on both sides depending on
the xr , and Kt represents the time-varying gear mesh ":tz
stiffness value. The gear teeth contact model is shown tm ¼ t  m: , simulation timeforeachmeshing
3
Figure 6.
ð10Þ
8 9  
>
< xr  b, xr  b >
= tm
tm  0, im ¼ floor , number of meshing passed
Fðxr , bÞ ¼ 0 ,  b 5 xr 5 b ð5Þ ":tz
>
: >
;
xr þ b, xr  b ð11Þ
8 9
Xr ¼ R3 :3  R4 :4 ð6Þ > meshing position >
>
> >
>
tm  im :":tz  ":t2 z < on the line =
Xm ¼ ,
ð1:125Þ:"a :tz >
> of action for each >
>
>
: >
; ð12Þ
tooth pair meshing
3. Time-varying gear mesh stiffness function tm
 ":ðim þ 12Þ
tz
Xm ¼
The time-varying gear mesh stiffness is a periodic func- ð1:125Þ:"a
tion caused by change in the number of contact tooth 8 9
pairs and the contact positions of gear teeth. The sche-   < time  base stiffness =
kðtÞ ¼ km ðtm Þ
matic representation of gear mesh over time for a gear for each tooth ð13Þ
¼ kp expðCa jXm jÞ3 :
pair meshing
;
ratio ( >2) is depicted in Figure 7. As known, Cai’s
(1995) pattern of time-varying gear mesh stiffness func-
tion is describing only one meshing length, i.e just a

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6 Journal of Vibration and Control

Figure 6. Gear teeth contact force and backlash model.

Figure 7. Gear mesh schematic model for " > 2.

Figure 8. Gear mesh stiffness simulation with the new time-base function.

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Yüces an and Sezer 7

Figure 9. Simulation result for hysteresis effect (Hysteresis rate ¼ 0).

t  ! idle rattle were quested by exploring the input shaft

 m  ":ðim þ 0:5Þ3 reactions against crank shaft attitudes. Hysteresis
 tz 
km ðtm Þ ¼ kp exp Ca :  ð14Þ rate, angle and spring rate are the parameters and
 ð1:125Þ:"a 
they were varied step by step in turn while the others
    remained constant in the simulation.
Kt ¼ k0 ðt0 Þ þ k1 ðt1 Þ þ    total gear mesh
ð15Þ Firstly, for the coulomb friction effect survey, hys-
þkm ðtm Þ, stiffness
teresis rate was increased from 0 to 0.2 Nms/rad by
0.05 Nms/rad steps as the angle and spring rate
were remained -50/100 and 5 Nm/rad respectively.
The reference (Cai, 1995) has detailed information The results are given in Figures 9–13 as the input
for the other terms of stiffness function. For the calcu- shaft speed versus engine speed and additionally the
lation of teeth damping coefficient below equations input shaft responses for all hysteresis rates are com-
(16), (17), (18) were applied. bined in a single graph, whose zoomed views are given
in Figure 14, for the comprehensive comparison of the
Z tz X
n  
1 average value of the vibration isolation abilities of the hysteresis rates.
k ¼ Kt :dt, ð16Þ In case hysteresis rate equals to zero, likewise no
tz 0 1
meshing stiffness
friction in the pre-damper mechanism to create hys-
I2 :I3 teresis effect, it can be concluded from Figure 9 and
me ¼ , equivalent mass inertia on Figure 14 that the input shaft speed is undergoing
I2 :R22 þ I3 :R23
severe oscillations and its behavior against engine
the line of action speed fluctuations is not repetitive and almost unpre-
ð17Þ dictable. Admitting that the 0.05 Nms/rad hysteresis
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi rate decreases input shaft speed amplitudes convin-
cingly, nonetheless, it is still undergoing severe oscilla-
Cy ¼ 2:: me k, teeth damping coefficient ð18Þ
tions in many regions especially between 0 to 2 s time
boundaries and starting behavior of the input shaft is
needed to be tuned to give stabilized reactions as seen in
4. Simulation and test results Figure 10 and Figure 14. In Figure 11, 0.1 Nms/rad
The amplitudes and characteristics of the input shaft hysteresis rate performs a satisfactory modulation
oscillations determine the rattling severity in transmis- to keep the changes in input shaft speed’s peak to
sion. In this study, a numerical investigation was per- peak amplitudes nearly same in all regions despite a
formed in order to understand how the parameters bit increment in the values by comparison with the
affect the dynamics of the phenomena. Therefore, ana- result in Figure 10. The hysteresis rate begins to
lyses of all pre-damper constituents’ effects on the adversely affect vibration isolation beyond the value

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8 Journal of Vibration and Control

Figure 10. Simulation result for hysteresis effect (Hysteresis rate ¼ 0.05 Nms/rad).

Figure 11. Simulation result for hysteresis effect (Hysteresis rate ¼ 0.1 Nms/rad).

of 0.1 Nms/rad by causing to raise amplitudes of input
shaft oscillations as observed in the Figure 12 and in
Figure 13. By taking overall hysteresis rate scrutiny into
consideration, the need for friction force or energy
absorption/dissipation is proved in the pre-damper
mechanism in order to rule over input shaft behavior.
Consequently, the more hysteresis rate increased, the
more vibration regulation can be ensured. But this
increment has a limitation owing to its adverse effect
on the vibration isolation by causing to transmit higher
speed amplitudes to the input shaft in case it is
over-increased as demonstrated in Figures 12–14.
Since the friction force for generating hysteresis effect
in the mechanism is provided by the diaphragm spring,
shown in Figure 1, whose force changes over time
because of alteration in its setup height during clutch
lifetime, thus, defining an applicable range for the hys-
teresis rate rather than an exact value is the compulsory
solution. Also, as seen in Figure 1 the diapraghm spring
is equipped with the friction washers and these washers
tend to wear during clutch lifetime as expected.
Wearing of washers lead to change the diapraghm

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Yüces an and Sezer 9

Figure 12. Simulation result for hysteresis effect (Hysteresis rate ¼ 0.15 Nms/rad).

Figure 13. Simulation result for hysteresis effect (Hysteresis rate ¼ 0.2 Nms/rad).

spring setup height which causes to decrease the friction
force that diaphragm spring applies. Therefore, depend-
ing on the friction washers wear-behavior, a safety factor
magnitude should be calculated from the loss of friction
force and be added to the lower bound in order to main-
tain the vibration regulation for the whole life of clutch
disk. For instance, according to Figures 9- 11, 0.05 Nms/
rad and 0.1 Nms/rad can be accepted as the lower and
upper limits where the unpredictable behaviors dis-
appeared and satisfactory modulation were observed.
By taking clutch service life into consideration, if the
safety factor magnitude is calculated from possible loss
of friction force as 0.02 Nms/rad, the optimum range of
hystresis rate can be designed as 0.07  hc  0.1 for the
manufacturing of clutch disk having -50 to 100 angle
movement and 5 Nm/rad spring rate configuration.
Secondly, for the spring rate effect inspection, the
spring rate was increased from 5 Nm/rad to 15 Nm/rad
while the angle and hysteresis values remained -50/100 and
0.1 Nms/rad respectively.

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10 Journal of Vibration and Control

Figure 14. Detailed views for comparison of hysteresis rates effect.

It can be concluded according to comparison of the
results demonstrated in Figure 15 over Figure 11 and in
Figure 16 with detailed views that decreasing the spring
rate, increases vibration isolation. But spring rate has a
lower limit interconnected with the amount of friction
force in the mechanism because the torque value
obtained from spring rate must be higher than hyster-
esis torque value, otherwise friction force can lock up
the mechanism and clutch disk hub cannot rotate to its
initial position as it needs to be.

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Yüces an and Sezer 11

Figure 15. Simulation result for spring rate effect.

Figure 16. Detailed views for comparison of spring rates effect.

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12 Journal of Vibration and Control

Figure 17. Simulation result for angular travel of pre-damper spring set effect.

Figure 18. Detailed view for comparison of angular travels of pre-damper spring set effect.

Thirdly, for the efficacy of pre-damper angle on the
phenomenon, in Figures 17 and 18, the angular dis-
placement of pre-damper spring set which the mechan-
ism allowed to be compressed in the clutch disk was
doubled to -100/200 from -50/100 for the same spring
rate and hysteresis values given in Figure 11. The result
shows that the more angle pre-damper mechanism has,
the better vibration isolation and starting behavior can
be provided. Spring sets’ deflection lets flywheel and
input shaft relatively rotates against each other but it
cannot be allowed regardless of springs block length
and buckling length.
5. Validation
The analytic model validation was handled by a test bench
that includes a diesel engine, solid flywheel, clutch disk and
a gearbox as shown in Figures 19a and 19b.
In the test bench, the gearbox housing is assembled
to the engine with bars aside from connection between

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Yüces an and Sezer 13

Figure 19. a. Test bench layout. b. Test bench for the validation of the analytic model.

clutch disk hub and input shaft spline. Engine and the
transmission are mounted to bench frame with their
own mounts as they are mounted to the vehicle chassis.
There are two 2500 p/r encoders mounted at the end of
engine crank shaft and gearbox input shaft to measure
the engine speed and input shaft speed. NI 6351 board
and Labview software were employed in data acquisi-
tion structure on the test bench and then the measure-
ments imported to matlab-simulink software to be used
in simulations. The result given in the Figure 21 was
divided into zoomed time zones and illustrated in
Figures 22–24 to ensure clearer visualization for
better comprehension.
The clutch disk in the test bench has a single-stage
pre-damper mechanism with a cassette type design. Its
parameters calculated from a torsion measurement that
used in simulation were given in Figure 20.
It should be noticed in all figures, the engine speed in
idle-neutral position has more than one frequency and
varying amplitudes which are different from the sam-
ples or functions usually represented in the literature
and it also continues to varies with the temperature

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14 Journal of Vibration and Control

Figure 20. Torsion characteristic of clutch disk used in the test bench.

Figure 21. Simulation result for the model validation.

Figure 22. Simulation result for the model validation (0-0.5 s).

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Yüces an and Sezer
Figure 23. Simulation result for the model validation (2 s-3 s).
Figure 24. Simulation result for the model validation (3.5 s-4.5 s).
and the condition the engine has. Figure 22 contains a
zoomed time division (0-0.5 s) for the comparison of
simulation and measurement results in point of the
starting behavior of gearbox input shaft. As seen in
the figure, despite the fact that they started and reacted
in well-matched way with consistent values up to 0.16 s,
the amplitudes of the input shaft speeds are promin-
ently dissimilar from each other in the time zone from
0.17 s to 0.33 s. During 0.34 s to 0.5 s, measurement and
simulation showed similar reactions again excluding
0.37 s- 0.4 s region. In Figure 23 and particularly in
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15
Figure 24, the curves displays similar behaviors by
equal frequency, almost same width and identical amp-
litudes even though they are normally not expected to
be fully fitted on one another because of plenty assump-
tions in the analytic model.
6. Conclusion
In this study, an analytic model including a new time-
varying gear mesh stiffness function and a test bench
for triggering the simulation and validating the analytic
16
model were employed to numerically investigate the
influence of clutch disk pre-damper mechanism’s con-
stituents on the idle rattle phenomenon.
How the mechanism constituents, hysteresis rate,
spring rate and angle change the transition of speed
oscillations from engine to the gearbox were explained.
According to the results, increasing pre-damper
angle and decreasing spring rate provides remarkable
vibration isolation in the gearbox while the hysteresis
rate mostly contributes to stabilization of oscillations if
it is in a well-defined range. Hence, defining a precise
solution for each operating condition of a vehicle
powertrain system with an appropriate pre-damper
torsion characteristic is a complicated and sophisticated
task.
In terms of future applications, this study motivates
to improve the analytic model architecture with adding
the other drivetrain components such as dual mass fly-
wheel, state-of-art gearboxes for double clutch trans-
mission, differential, axles into the model in order to
analyze the transition of torsional vibrations in a whole
powertrain system.
Conflict of interest
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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