Vibration Analysis of Motor Bracket Used in Steering

Zhijia Z. Yang
Valeo Inc.
3000 University Drive
Auburn Hills, MI 48326, USA
Abstract: A mounting bracket with a mounted DC motor for automotive steering columns was analyzed to
determine the structural integrity when subjected to vibration, which is known as one of major failures for
mounting brackets if not designed in a proper manner. There were two forms of vibrations taken into considerations: random response and harmonic response. Of interest to engineers is whether the magnitudes
of vibration induced will be damaging to the components. This case study will demonstrate that stresses are
largely dependent upon the excitation frequency in both vibration analyses.

1. Introduction
As there are more demands for higher quality, greater safety and longer life, requirements for a motor vehicle become more stringent. These stringent requirements for durability and vibrations are not only expected
to be met at automakers vehicles lever, but also at auto suppliers components lever. Thus, supplying
automotive parts also means supplying simulation based on computer aided engineering with the products
furnished. Due to the proven capability of the finite element method, it is deemed to have an important and
crucial role in automotive product design.
Considered here as case studies is a motor used in steering column tilt adjustment. Of primary interest at
early product development is its characteristics of vibration and associated durability. It is well known that
excessive vibration can lead to not only inferior sound quality but also pre-mature fatigue.
There will be two types of steadystate vibrations considered here, i.e., harmonic vibration and random vibration. These two forms of vibrations are widely employed in automotive product development to ensure
that the products used in motor vehicles will be capable of enduring the most damaging (detrimental) road
conditions.

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2. Modeling
Figure 1 shows the finite element model of a motor to undergo steady state excitations. All the components
that are expected to significantly contribute to the dynamic response are included in the analysis. When it is
installed on a steering column, four holes on the mounting bracket are screwed with the shaft axis (i.e., xaxis in Figure 1) tilted about 22 degrees from a vehicles vertical axis around its lateral axis (see Gillespie,
1992, for the SAE definition) . As a vehicle is traveling, road profiles acts as base excitations to wherever it
is mounted.
It is generally recognized that two sources of excitation will have dynamic effects on the whole structure of
motor and bracket, depending on whether the load comes internally within the motor or externally to it. An
internal dynamic loading may be primarily due to time-dependent torque and centrifugal forces due to imbalance of rotor. As shown in a separate analysis, the stress under loads at stall and operation for this structure is so low and the safety margin is so great that this internal dynamic effect is not critical. On the other
hand, The external dynamic effect is due to the excitation from whatever the bracket is mounted to. While
there is no internal dynamic force when a rotor is not rotating, the external dynamic forces will always applies to the entire structure as long as it is moving on roads. This analysis addresses steady-state responses
due to base excitation within frequency of interest.
2.1

Element meshing

Because there is interaction between various components for a motor in the case of dynamic situation, it is
necessary to analyze these components together. As shown in Figure 1, the model primarily consists of tetrahedral solid elements and shell elements. Motor housing, end cap and two oppositely located magnets are
modeled by shell elements while a mounting bracket, also serving as one of end cap to house one bearing to
support a shaft in the middle, is discretized by tetrahedral elements. In this analysis, it is assumed that the
strain energy from the shaft (rotor) is not significant compared with other components of interest and,
therefore, ignore by only representing the rotor with concentrated mass at its center of mass. The mass is
connected to both spherical bearing housings by the means of rigid and weightless beams. This amounts to
neglecting the stiffness for the shaft with its inertial effect included.
All the components (e.g., bracket, motor case and magnets, and end cap) are assumed to be rigidly connected with each other, except for four mounting screws. To account for the effect of stiffness at the four
mount holes on the bracket, each screws are modeled as a tension and compression spring with a stiffness
of 106 N/mm, corresponding to a steel rod of 4-mm diameter and 2.5mm in length. The end of the each
spring is attached to the base where an excitation is applied.
2.2

Material and mass properties

All material properties (i.e., Youngs modules, and Poisson ratio) and mass properties are listed in Table 1.
To get an idea of inertia, the last column in Table 1 also shows the mass for each component, though this
information is not directly input in the model.

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Table 1. Material and mass properties for the dynamic analysis.

Parts (Material)

Youngs Modulus
E (Mpa)

Poisson
Ratio

Density
(kg/mm3)

Mass
(kg)

Bracket (zinc)
Housing (steel)
End cap (steel)
Rotor

85,000
200,000
200,000
N/A

0.32
0.3
0.3
N/A

6.710-6
7.810-6
7.810-6
N/A

0.068
0.2
0.0467
0.15

Damping ratios for all the normal modes are assumed to be 3%, which is relatively light. It is well known
that damping is much more important when vibration occurs at or near the resonant frequency. As we will
find, the maximum response (displacement and stress) occurs when the system resonates, in which case the
response is proximately inversely proportional to the damping ratio (Thompson, 1988).
2.3

Base excitation

In this analysis, an excitation of 3g (1g = 9,800 mm/s2) is applied to the entire structure (including the
bracket) by four mounting screws (modeled as four springs) in a frequency range between 20 and 200 Hz,
in the vertical direction. Since the motor is oriented such that its shaft axis (x direction) is tilted 22 degrees
away from the vertical axis, the acceleration in x-axis, ax = 2.781g and in z-axis, az = 1.124g .
In random excitation, it is assumed the root mean squared (RMS) acceleration is also 3g, the same as the
magnitude of excitation in harmonic vibration. Based on the assumption of broad band power spectral density (PSD) in the frequency range of 20 to 200 Hz, the constant PSD of acceleration can determined in the
following.
(a RMS ) 2 = a PSD d = a PSD (f2- f1)

(1)

from which, a PSD can be found:

a PSD = (a RMS ) 2 / (f2- f1) = 9/(200-20) = 0.05 (g2/Hz)

(2)

where f1, f2 are the beginning and end of frequency, respectively. Since any PSD acceleration in a finite
element model has to be specified in global axes, it is necessary to calculate its components in x and z-axis.
If a RMS is decomposed into x and z, the following rule for a vector must be satisfied to have an equivalent
excitation:
(ax RMS ) = a RMS cos()
(ay RMS ) = a RMS sin()

(3)

where in this case is the angle between the direction of excitation and x-axis. Squaring Eq(3) with the
substitution of Eq(1) yields:
ax PSD = a PSD cos 2()
az PSD = a PSD sin 2()

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(4)

Setting a PSD = 0.05 and = 22 will gives us ax PSD = 0.04298 (g2/Hz) and az PSD = 0.00702 (g2/Hz).

3. Results and discussions

It is very helpful to first review the natural frequencies for the system shown in Figure 1. The lowest three
natural frequencies are tabulated in Table 2.
Table 2. Modes included in steady-state responses.
Mode
No.
1
2
3

Natural Freq.
(Hz)
149.9
914.81
1303.6

Mode Shape
Bending about z (x-y plane)
Bending about y (x-z plane)
twist about x

As shown in Table 2, the lowest natural frequency, about 150 Hz, is within the frequency range of excitation. It is known that the severity of vibration depends on not only the frequency excited but also how well
the excitations match the mode shape associated with the resonant frequency. In what follows, all the responses are based on the three modes listed in Table 2.
3.1

Harmonic vibration

As discussed earlier, harmonic response (stead-state dynamics) is computed based on a assumed uniform
amplitude of base excitation of 3g between 20 and 200 Hz. The responses in terms of displacement at node
283163 (see Figure 2) are plotted in Figure 3. Since the first natural frequency, the only resonance within
the excitation occurs at 150 Hz, as shown in Table 2, it is very clear that the response at that frequency is
much higher than those in the neighborhood. This is typical of a resonant phenomena.
Figure 4 shows the stress contour at 150 Hz when the structure is subject to 3g excitation at that frequency.
The stress plotted in Figure 4 is the magnitude of normal stress at the resonant frequency in x direction (1
direction). It is also verified that the dynamic response in terms of all six stress components has a phase angle of around 90 degrees at the highly-stressed location. It is found that the normal stress in x-axis, as plotted in Figure 4, is much greater than the other five stress components at the same location.
3.2

Random vibration

When a structure is subject to a random excitation, the response to it is also of random nature (Rao, 1995).
The random input (excitation) and output (response) are expressed in Power Spectral Density, from which a
corresponding root mean square can be derived. The response at the same nodes as in the previous case of
harmonic vibration is plotted in figure 5 in terms of PSD. Similar resonance is evident around 150 Hz.
However, it is interesting but not surprising to note that the RMS displacement of 0.012mm in this case is
lower than the counterpart in Figure 3. While the RMS excitation (3g) is the same as the magnitude of excitation in harmonic exception, all 3g are used to excite a structure at 150 Hz in the harmonic vibration. On
the contrary, 3g are spread throughout the frequency range (20 to 200Hz) in random case and a structure is
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excited by accelerations with all frequencies within the range simultaneously. This is why the response in
random case is lower. For the same reason, the RMS stress, as shown in Figure 6, is also lower than Figure
4, because of the de-concentration of the excitation energy at resonance. Because a vehicle travling on
roads rarely experiences a single frequency excitation with deterministic nature, using random vibration
analysis sounds more realistic.

4. Conclusions
A motor with a mount bracket has been analyzed for two types of dynamic responses. Although the fundamental mode is within the frequency range of 3g excitation, the responses in terms of displacement and
stress resulting from either vibration analysis are far from damaging. In particular, the maximum stress occurring in the mounting bracket is still below the materials endurance limit for 500 million cycles at a
temperature of 95C, thus indicating the part will have very good durability. The low stress is partly attributed to the good design of the 4-hole mounting that yields very stiff structure and the direction of excitation.

5. References
Gillespie, T. W., Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics, SEA, pp. 8-9, 1992.
Rao, R. R., Mechanical Vibrations, Addison-Wesley Company, 1995.
Thompson, W. T., Theory of Vibration with Application, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.,1988.

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Figure 1. Finite element model for a motor.

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Node #283163

Figure 2. Mode shape for the lowest mode at 149.9 Hz

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Figure 3. Magnitude of displacement at node 283163

4.0E-02

Displacement (mm)

3.5E-02
3.0E-02
2.5E-02
2.0E-02
1.5E-02
1.0E-02
5.0E-03
0.0E+00
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Frequency (Hz)

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Figure 4. Contour of stress component at 150 Hz when subject to 3g

harmonic excitation.

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Figure 5. PSD displacement in y-axis at node 283163 (RMS=0.012 mm)

1.0E-05

PSD Disp. (mm 2/Hz)

8.0E-06

6.0E-06

4.0E-06

2.0E-06

0.0E+00

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Frequency (Hz)

10

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Figure 6. RMS stress in the case of random response to 3g RMS

acceleration.

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Figure Captions
Figure 1. Finite element model for a motor.
Figure 2. Modal shape for the lowest mode at 149.9 Hz
Figure 3. Magnitude of displacement at node 283163
Figure 4: Contour of stress component at 150 Hz subject to 3g harmonic excitation.
Figure 5. PSD displacement in y-axis at node 283163 (RMS=0.012 mm)
Figure 6. RMS stress in the case of random response to 3g RMS acceleration
Table titles
Table 1. Material Properties.
Table 2. Modes included in steady-state responses.

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