Designing a buffer-equipped hydraulic engine mount for mid-priced vehicles

A combined hydraulic engine mount and buffer is proposed in this study for use in the mid-priced vehicle. In some vehicle design projects, an engine is selected to use in a new car design. To achieve the desired vibration conditions, the mount can be redesigned with exorbitant costs and long-term research. The idea of using a buffer in the combination of the conventional engine mount is to suggest a solution with affordable price which can improve mount vibration specifications. As a case study, the engine of Renault L90 (Dacia Logan), which name is K4M engine, is selected to use in the national B class automotive platform design. This automotive platform is designed at Automotive Engineering Research Center of Iran University of Science and Technology. The hydraulic engine mount is modeled in CATIA. Some tests are done to validate the simulation results. The conventional and buffer-equipped mount characteristics, which are determined by CATIA, is imported to Adams/Vibration software to evaluate the vibration behavior of the engine mounts. The results show that the use of buffer reduces the stiffness of mount, which should be 2 to 3 times lower than engine's frequency excitation. In some directions, the buffer-equipped mount has a better modal energy and isolation characteristics.