Multibody System Dynamics Simulation of Loads in Main Bearings of Crankshafts

In this paper, as for the calculation of loads in main bearings in a crankshaft system, multibody system dynamics is used to simulate the dynamic characteristics of the system composed of flexible and rigid bodies, coupled with hydrodynamic lubrication analysis further. The multibody system model with flexible crankshaft of one V8 diesel engine is built in ADAMS software, in which the bearings are modeled as rigid constrained bearings and hydrodynamic bearings respectively. The resulted loads in main bearings using different models are compared. The results show that the deformation of crankshafts has great effect on the values of loads in main bearings, and the bearing loads in different directions tend to uniformity due to the hydrodynamic lubrication.