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Article in Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power · July 2002
DOI: 10.1115/1.1455639
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1 Introduction suggested for the noise signal. In the third section, an analysis
procedure has been developed for making use of the advantages of
Internal combustion 共IC兲 engine noise has been drawing signifi-
the LTFD and the BLTFD, but avoiding their disadvantages, in
cant attention from automotive manufacturers. To effectively re- this section, an analysis procedure with the time-frequency distri-
duce the noise level, the first step is the identification of noise bution has been developed. Another important purpose is to de-
sources, which relies on the noise signal analysis. From the aspect velop a signal processing procedure especially for mechanical en-
of condition monitoring or manufacture/assembly quality assess- gineers of such merits as simplicity and practicality. An example
ment, abnormal noise signals usually indicate abnormal conditions of identifying noise sources and detecting the abnormal condition
or problems in the manufacture quality. To pick up the problem, of an injector with the noise signal time-frequency distribution for
the abnormal signal source should be found first. This also de- a diesel engine is provided in the fourth section. The last section
pends on the signal analysis. of the paper is the Conclusion.
Traditionally, noise signals are mainly analyzed with spectral
analysis, i.e., the Fourier transform. However, the Fourier trans-
form is not a proper tool for the analysis of internal combustion 2 Internal Combustion Engine Noise
engine vibration and noise signals, as they are nonstationary and Signal Components
consist of many transient components. In recent years, a new sig-
An IC engine noise signal is composed of many components
nal processing technique especially suitable for the nonstationary
from different sources. These sources include combustion, me-
signal analysis, time-frequency distribution, has been developed chanical, and the combination of both. To identify the requirement
共关1–5兴兲. It is a technique of displaying a signal over a time- of noise signal analysis, we begin with a discussion on the noise
frequency plane and showing the variation of frequency content signal components.
versus the time or the evolution of a time signal with respect to The combustion noise is produced by a rapid rate of pressure
the frequency. Methods include linear time-frequency distribution rise, which besides being a source of engine structural vibrations
共LTFD兲 and bilinear time-frequency distribution 共BLTFD兲. Con- also excites resonance in the gas inside a combustion chamber
strained by the uncertainty principle 共关1兴兲, an important drawback cavity. The latter is also a source of vibration and noise. The
of the LTFD is that it cannot have simultaneous high resolution in contribution of the combustion to the whole noise signal is some
both the time domain and the frequency domain. As a conse- transient components. In a normal condition, the combustion noise
quence, when it is applied to engine noise signal analyses, it may is mostly in a frequency range above a few 100 hertz as the
not separate neighboring transient components and present major combustion energy below this range is mostly transformed into
frequencies of each transient component. Although the BLTFD useful work by pushing pistons forward. In the case of abnormal
can have a higher simultaneous resolution than the LTFD 共关2兴兲 conditions, degradation in the combustion quality may produce
and much effort has been devoted to develop better methods 共关5兴兲, some low frequency content in the combustion noise.
it has problems such as cross terms in the distribution, complexity A rise in the cylinder pressure pushes the piston from the top
of the algorithm, and low speed of the calculation. Nevertheless, dead center 共TDC兲 advancing to the bottom dead center 共BDC兲. In
because the BLTFD can achieve a higher simultaneous resolution, this movement, the clearance between the piston and the cylinder
it has been widely applied to noise signal analysis 共关6,7兴兲 and or damage to piston rings can cause the piston to impact with the
engine vibration and pressure signal analysis 共关8兴兲. cylinder, the phenomenon of piston slap, which is another major
In this paper, in order to identify requirements of the noise source of engine noises. As the piston slap is caused by both the
signal analysis and also correlate a time-frequency analysis result combustion and the clearance, the noise level reflects the combus-
with noise sources, the composition of the noise signal is dis- tion quality and changes in the clearance. The impacts will add
cussed first. With this discussion, a mathematical model has been transient components to the engine noise signal. As piston slap
happens on the way from the TDC to the BDC, it can be identified
1
To whom all correspondence should be addressed. by referring to the time axis.
Contributed by the Internal Combustion Engine Division of THE AMERICAN SO- An important feature of IC engines is that they have both re-
CIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS for publication in the ASME JOURNAL OF
ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER. Manuscript received by the ICE
ciprocating and rotating parts. Different type of parts will produce
Division, June 2000; final revision received by the ASME Headquarters, August different signal components. Rotating parts, such as the flywheel
2001. Editor: D. N. Assanis. and front pulley, can excite harmonic components to the noise.
Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power JULY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 645
Copyright © 2002 by ASME
Decided by the engine speed, these harmonic components mainly
distribute in the low-frequency range. An increase in the ampli-
tude of the harmonic components indicates condition variations of
these rotating parts. Contributions of different rotating parts to the
noise can be identified with reference to their speeds. The timing
gear chain is another source of mechanical noise. Any damage to
the gears will produce impacts and thus adds extra transient com-
ponents to the signal or increase the amplitude of corresponding
transient components.
Injectors and valves are reciprocating moving parts. They pro-
duce impacts to the engine structure and hence contribute tran-
sient components to the noise. In a normal condition, there are
two major impacts generated in the operation of an injector. The
first impact is the needle of the injector striking the backstop, and
the second impact occurs when the needle sits back in its seat. In
an injector, the needle is held onto its seat by a high rate spring.
This spring also serves to control the injection pressure and regu-
late the injection time. A decrease in the stiffness of the spring will
bring forward the injection time. As a consequence, the combus-
tion quality will be degraded. Low spring stiffness may also fail to
push the needle onto its seat against the combustion pressure. In
some other abnormal conditions, the needle may remain open be-
cause of the deterioration of the guide or the seat. In such cases,
there will be no impact at all. Degradation in fuel pumps, such as
low pressure and piston leakage, will also result in a change in the
injection time and pressure. In summary, time and amplitude of
some transient components are indications of the condition of an
injection system.
An engine has many inlet valves and exhaust valves. A valve is
opened by a camshaft and pushed back to its seat by a valve
spring. Any problems with valve seats, tappets, and mechanisms
can cause a change to the transient vibrations produced during
opening and closing, and thus the corresponding transient compo-
nents of the noise signal. These valves open and close at different
times, and so the contribution of different valves to the noise can
be identified from the times of events.
Fluid-induced noise, such as exhaust and inlet noise, is also an
important part of the noise. Along with the sudden release of gas
into the exhaust system or the rush of a sharp pulse of fresh air Fig. 1 A diesel engine noise signal. „a … diesel engine noise
into the cylinder, oscillation of the air volume in the cylinder and signal, „b … residual diesel engine noise signal
the exhaust system is excited and hence noise is produced. When
inlet and exhaust valves close, noises will also be generated for a
change in the fluid field. The fluid-induced noise contributes tran-
sient components to the whole noise. Some early research shows
that fluid-induced noise usually has high frequencies. With mod- 3 Signal Processing Procedure
ern fluid passage designs, the level of fluid-induced noise is nor- It is known from the discussion in Section 2 that a basic re-
mally very low. Damage or problems with the exhaust and inlet quirement on a signal processing technique is that it should at
system will increase the magnitude of the fluid-induced noise. least reveal information on the amplitude, the time, and the fre-
Referring the above discussion on the composition of the en- quency content of an event. To satisfy the requirement, a signal
gine noise, a noise signal can be mathematically described as processing technique should be two-dimensional, in the time-
frequency domain.
The LTFD and the BLTFD both have advantages and disadvan-
tages. Apparently, an ideal transform is the one that has both their
x共 t 兲⫽ 兺 a cos共 t⫹ ␣ 兲 ⫹ 兺 兺 b
i i i i j 共 t 兲 u 共 t⫺t j 兲
advantages but not their disadvantages. In this section, a new sig-
nal processing procedure with the time-frequency distribution will
⫻cos共 i j t⫹ ␣ i j 兲 (1) be developed from the linear transform and the bilinear transform.
The LTFD of a measured signal sequence x(n) uses the follow-
ing formula 共关4兴兲:
E 共 t, f k 兲 ⫽ 兩 A 共 t, f k 兲 兩 .
An advantage of the LTFD is that it can be easily realized with the
(3) B 共 t, f k 兲 ⫽ 冋兺 s
x 共 s 兲 u 共 ␣ ,t⫺s 兲 e ⫺ j2 f k s 册
fast Fourier transform 共FFT兲.
The BLTFD is generally defined with the following equation of
the Cohen class 共关2兴兲:
⫻冋兺 p
x 共 p 兲v共  ,t⫺p 兲 e ⫺ j2 f k p 册 *
. (10)
冕冕 冋冕 冉 冊
To calculate the sound pressure, the transform is
⫺ j t⫺ j2 f k
B(t, f k )⫽ 共 , 兲e x u⫹ E 共 t, f k 兲 ⫽ 兩 B 共 t, f k 兲 兩 1/2. (11)
2
冉 冊 册
This is the general form of the transform. With reference to the
ju general form of the linear transform expressed by Eq. 共2兲, the
⫻x * u⫺ e dtu d d (4)
2 transform is the multiplication of two linear transforms. With the
where all integrations are from ⫺⬁ to ⬁ and * denotes the com- FFT, the transform can be calculated with high speed. The algo-
plex conjugate. In Eq. 共4兲, the weighting function ( , ) is called rithm is also simplified.
kernel of the distribution. However, it can be found from Eq. 共4兲 The above discussion also gives an explanation why a bilinear
that a BLTFD may produce spurious interference artifacts in fre- distribution can have a simultaneously high time and frequency-
quency and time by the product of x(a)x(b), which bring diffi- domain resolution. If one linear transform has a high time-domain
culties to the interpretation of the signal analysis result and may resolution, or a narrow time-domain window, and the other has a
result in the misunderstanding of the system condition. Even with high-frequency-domain resolution, or a narrow frequency-domain
some knowledge about the frequency content of a signal, the window, the multiplication of their windows will only occupy a
BLTFD should be applied with caution as some crossterms may very small area on the time-frequency plane.
have same positions as some autoterms in the frequency domain. In the transform, the Gaussian function is often as the time-
In practical applications, a discrete form often used is domain window.
冋兺 册 / 冑4 ␣
2/␣
e ⫺0.25n (12)
B 共 t, f k 兲 ⫽ 兺e
n
⫺ j2 f k n
m
共 t⫺m,n 兲 x 共 m⫹n/2兲 x * 共 m⫺n/2兲 A property of the Gaussian function is that its Fourier transform
(5) has the same form as its time-domain function. This is useful for
both avoiding the problem of energy leakage and conducting the
where transform in the frequency domain 关4兴.
冕
In summary, the new signal processing procedure is as follows.
共 t⫺m,n 兲 ⫽ e ⫺ j(t⫺m) 共 ,n 兲 d (5a) 1. conducting the LTFD twice, one transform with a narrower
window and the other with a wider window,
(t⫺m,n) is the correlation weighting function. 2. multiplying one transform with the complex conjugate of the
A measured engine noise signal is usually contaminated by other transform, and
noises from the environment and the measurement system. Math- 3. the result is the square root of the modulus of the multipli-
ematically, the measured signal sequence should be expressed as cation.
x 共 n 兲 ⫽y 共 n 兲 ⫹ 共 n 兲 (6)
4 Example
where y(n) is the unknown engine noises and (n) represents all
other noises. Unless the frequency band of the noise is different The following example is a practical application of the signal
from the frequency band of the interested signal, the LTFD can- processing procedure developed in Section 3 to the analysis of
not suppress the noise. To reduce the influence of these noises on diesel engine noise signals. It is the condition monitoring of diesel
the result, the measured signal should be pre-processed, such as fuel injectors from engine noise signals. This example will also
with time-domain averaging or other methods 共关9兴兲. It can be seen show contributions of different sources to a noise signal.
from Eq. 共5兲 that the BLTFD is the Fourier transform of the Fuel injectors are important parts of a diesel engine. One of
weighted correlation function. Therefore, if these noises are white factors defining the condition of an injector is the stiffness of the
noises and are independent of the engine noises, the bilinear trans- spring holding the needle onto its seat. Any decrease in the stiff-
form can suppress their influence on the analysis result. This is ness will change the injection time and therefore degrade the per-
another advantage of the BLTFD. formance of the engine. In this application, the stiffness was arti-
To make use the advantages of the BLTFD, a new signal pro- ficially reduced. This action decreased the injection pressure. As a
cessing procedure can be derived from the BLTFD. By substitut- result, an earlier injection was expected. The beginning and end-
ing the coordinate transform ing time of the injection, which are represented by signal transient
components generated by impacts between the needle and the
m⫹n/2⫽s and m⫺n/2⫽p (7) seat/backstop, can be found from the time-frequency distribution
of the noise signal. Although the impacts between the needle and
into Eq. 共5兲, Eq. 共5兲 can be rewritten as
the seat/backstop are weak compared with many impacts among
other engine components, the time-frequency distribution can still
B 共 t, f k 兲 ⫽ 兺es
⫺ j2 f k s
x共 s 兲 reveal them by localizing the signal analysis. This is an important
advantage of the time-frequency distribution.
The diesel engine has four cylinders. It was installed on a test
⫻ 兺 共 t⫺ 共 s⫹p 兲 /2,s⫺p 兲
p
rig in the Engine Laboratory, School of Engineering, Manchester
University, UK. In the experiment, the engine speed was around
⫻e j2 f k p x * 共 p 兲 . (8) 2010 rpm. A microphone 共B&K 4130兲, located at a short distance
toward the injector, in which the stiffness of the spring was arti-
In Eq. 共8兲, if the function (t,(s⫹p)/2,s⫺p) is so chosen that it ficially reduced, was used to measure the noise signals. A mea-
can be decoupled with respect to variables s and p as sured noise signal is shown in Fig. 1共a兲 共the time axis is samples兲.
Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power JULY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 647
Fig. 2 Diesel engine noise signal time-frequency distributions; „a … time-frequency distribution of injector vibration signal
„without fault…, „b … time-frequency distribution of injector vibration signal „with fault…, „c … spectrum of residual noise signal
„without fault…, „d … time-frequency distribution of residual noise signal „without fault…, „e … spectrum of residual noise signal
„with fault…; „f … time-frequency distribution of residual noise signal „with fault…
In the signal processing, dominant harmonic components were TDC is used as the x-axis, the time interval was transformed into
removed from the signal with the Fourier transform. Figure 1共b兲 is the angular interval by supposing that the engine speed was con-
the residual signal. To verify the result from the noise signal stant during the time interval of sampling. To provide reference
analysis, a specially designed 共acceleration兲 sensor was arranged for events, the time of the TDC was also recorded.
inside the injector for measuring vibration signals of the injector In the transform, the time-domain window is the Gaussian func-
共关10,11兴兲, which can exactly measure the injection time. Data was tion. For the narrow window, ␣ ⫽115, and for the wide window,
sampled in the time domain. In Fig. 2, where degree from the ␣ ⫽390. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method in
Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power JULY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 649