Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194

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Applied Acoustics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust

Noise source identification of diesel engine based on variational mode

decomposition and robust independent component analysis
Jiachi Yao, Yang Xiang ⇑, Sichong Qian, Shuai Wang, Shaowei Wu
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China
Key Laboratory of Marine Power Engineering and Technology, Ministry of Communications, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Through separating and identifying the noise sources of diesel engine, each independent noise obtained
Received 7 June 2016 can be used as reference for the noise reduction, condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. In the noise
Received in revised form 19 September source identification of diesel engine, the combustion noise and the piston slap noise are found to be
2016
overlapped in time domain and frequency domain. So it is intricate to accurately separate them.
Accepted 21 September 2016
Available online xxxx
Therefore, the noise source identification method which is based on variational mode decomposition
(VMD), robust independent component analysis (RobustICA) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT)
is proposed. In the test, a 6-cylinder diesel engine was tested in a semi-anechoic chamber. The lead
Keywords:
Acoustics
wrapped method was adopted to wrap No. 1–5 cylinders so as to isolate the interference noises, only
Diesel engine the No. 6 cylinder part was bared. The single channel noise signal of cylinder head was measured.
Noise source identification Then the variational mode decomposition algorithm is utilized to decompose the noise signal into several
Variational mode decomposition variational mode components. The RobustICA algorithm is adopted to extract the independent compo-
Robust independent component analysis nents. Finally, the continuous wavelet transform and the prior knowledge of diesel engine are applied
Continuous wavelet transform to further identify the separated results. The results show that by using the proposed method to separate
and identify the radiation noise of the cylinder head of the diesel engine, the independent components
obtained are respectively the combustion noise and the piston slap noise. Comparing with the EEMD-
RobustICA-CWT method, each independent noises obtained through the proposed method are more accu-
rate and pure with less other interference noises.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction engine working condition, each independent noise source can be

Diesel engine is the main power equipment of water and land
transportation tool. The control of diesel engine noise has become
a dominant direction for noise pollution reduction. The primary
noise sources of diesel engine are the combustion noise, mechani-
cal noise and aerodynamic noise. If the mixed noise which is mea-
sured in the actual measurement is separated, the characteristics
and the contribution of each independent noise source can be
obtained. For diesel engine vibration and noise reduction, the
obtained independent noise source can provide accurate informa-
tion for diesel engine sound quality design [1–3]. Moreover, the
noise of diesel engine contains the important information of diesel
Abbreviations: VMD, variational mode decomposition; EMD, Empirical Mode
Decomposition; EEMD, Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition; ICA, independent
component analysis; CWT, continuous wavelet transform; FFT, Fast Fourier
Transform; TDC, top dead center.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +008613237198792, Fax: +862786581997.
E-mail address: yxiang@whut.edu.cn (Y. Xiang).
used as the basis for condition monitoring and fault diagnosis [4,5].
In recent years, many researchers adopted multi-channel
method to separate and identify the noise sources of diesel engine.
For example, Badaoui et al. [6,7] used cyclic wiener filtering and
blind source separation algorithm to separate the combustion
noise and the piston knock noise of the diesel engine. Xi et al. [8]
applied the near field sound intensity method and the near-field
acoustical holography technology to identify the noise and vibra-
tion of the chain drive system of the diesel engine. Gu et al. [9] uti-
lized sound intensity and acoustic array methods to identify the
noise source of an engine at idle condition. Leclère et al. [10] intro-
duced multi-channel spectral analysis method to research the
noise amplitude modulation phenomenon when the diesel engine
is running at idle. Lin et al. [11] measured the multi-channel noise
signals of the engine. Then the improved blind source separation
method was applied to identify the mechanical noise and combus-
tion noise. Blacodon and Lewy [12] employed the three-sensor
coherence method to identify the noise sources of the turboshaft
engine.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2016.09.026
0003-682X/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194 185

When using the multi-channel method to identify the noise of each variation modal component. K is the number of variational
sources of diesel engine, lots of sensors are required to measure modal components. t is represent the time.ot is the partial derivative
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
multiple channel signals at the same time. The traditional blind of the t. d(t) is the impulse function. j ¼ 1. x is the circular fre-
source separation method cannot solve the underdetermined sep- quency (2pf)  x(t) is the signal to be decomposed.
aration problem. And the sensors are also expensive. In order to In order to transform the constrained variational problem into
use fewer sensors to achieve the same noise source separation the unconstraint problem, it needs to bring in quadratic penalty
effect, researchers study single-channel method to separate and factor a and Lagrangian multipliers k. The quadratic penalty factor
identify the noise sources. For instance, Du et al. [13] utilized a is to ensure the accuracy of the signal reconstruction and conver-
Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and independent compo- gence in noise condition. Its size is related to the strength of the
nent analysis method to separate the vibration signals of diesel noise values. The Lagrangian multipliers k can make the constraint
engine. But using the EMD method to analyze the signals, the rigor. Through bringing in the two parameters, the extended
end effect and the modal aliasing problems will appear [14,15]. Lagrangian expression can be obtained as follow:
Furthermore, Bi et al. [16] adopted EEMD-RobustICA method to
X

  2

identify the noise sources of gasoline engine. But the EEMD Lðfuk g; fxk g; kÞ :¼ a @ t dðtÞ þ j  uk ðtÞ ejxk t 
(Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition) method is still
 pt 
k 2
appeared the modal aliasing problems. Besides this method will  2 * +
 X  X
need a lot of time owing to add Gaussian white noise before each  
þ xðtÞ  uk ðtÞ þ kðtÞ; f ðtÞ  uk ðtÞ
step of EMD. And it is also difficult to determine the amplitude  k
 k
2
of the added Gaussian white noise. ð2Þ
Due to lots of noise sources exist in diesel engine, so it is almost
impossible and not necessary to separate all of the noise sources. where a is the quadratic penalty factor, k is the Lagrangian multipli-
At present, the combustion noise and the piston slap noise of diesel ers. uk(t) is the K-th variational mode component.
engine are intricate to accurately separate. When piston is moved Then the alternate direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is
to the vicinity of top dead center (TDC), the combustion noise and utilized to solve the extended Lagrangian expression. By alternat-
the piston slap noise are overlapped in time domain and frequency ing update the uknþ1 , xnþ1
k and knþ1 , the optimal solution of the
domain. equation can be obtained. Finally, the x(t) signal is decomposed
Hence, the target of this paper is to separate and identify the into several variational model components. The algorithm imple-
combustion noise and the piston slap noise of diesel engine. The mentation steps are as follows:
noise test of the WP10-240 type diesel engine was carried out in
a semi-anechoic chamber. The lead wrapped method was adopted Step 1: Initialize fu1k g; fx1k g; k1 ; n ¼ 0
to wrap the No. 1–5 cylinders. Moreover, in order to eliminate the Step 2: n = n + 1
aerodynamic noise, the exhaust main was connected to the out- Step 3: For k = 1, 2,   , K, do
door by a long pipe. Finally, the VMD-RobustICA-CWT method is

n 
n n
proposed to separate and identify the noise sources of the No. 6 unþ1
k ¼ arg min Lð unþ1
i<k ; uiPk ; xi ; k Þ ð3Þ
uk
cylinder.



n


xnþ1
k ¼ arg min Lð unþ1
i i<k ; xiPk ; k Þ
; xnþ1 n
ð4Þ
x
2. Basic theory k

!
2.1. Variational mode decomposition X
knþ1 ¼ kn þ s f  unþ1
k ð5Þ
k
The variational mode decomposition (VMD) algorithm is a new
signal decomposition method, which is proposed by Dragomiret- Step 4: Judge whether or not meet the convergence condition.
skiy and Zosso [17]. It adopted the non-recursive variational mode X  . 
unþ1  un 2 un 2 < c ð6Þ
k k 2 k 2
decomposition method. It requires the sum of estimate bandwidth
k
of each Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF) component is least. When
the variational mode decomposition algorithm is used to decom-
pose the signals, the constrained variational problem is If meet, then stop the program running, otherwise continue to
( ) execute step 2.
X

h  i 2
 Where K is the iteration number. c is the convergence stopped
min @ t dðtÞ þ pjt  uk ðtÞ ejxk t 
fuk gfxk g 2 condition.
X
k ð1Þ
s:t: uk ¼ xðtÞ
2.2. Robust independent component analysis
k

where fuk g :¼ fu1 ; . . . ; uK g is represent K variational model compo- Independent component analysis (ICA) is mainly applied to
nents, fxk g :¼ fx1 ; . . . ; xK g is the corresponding center frequencies solve the blind source separation problem. When the mixing

source noise observed separated

signals (t) n(t) signal signaly (t)
mixed x(t) separated
matrix A matrix W

unknown

Fig. 1. The principle diagram of ICA.

186 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194

Fig. 2. The simulation signal.

(a) EMD separation results

matrix A and source signals S(t) are unknown, ICA can separate
source signals from mixed signals. The principle diagram of ICA
is shown in Fig. 1.
The ICA separation process is to find the linear transformation
matrix of the observed signal, so as to make the output results
are independent as far as possible. It can be defined as
yðtÞ ¼ WxðtÞ ¼ WAsðtÞ ð7Þ
where A is the mixed matrix, W is the separated matrix.
RobustICA is proposed by Zarzoso and Comon [18]. It is an inde-
pendent component analysis algorithm which is based on kurtosis
and optimal step length. The Kurtosis formula is
n o n o 

E jyj4  2E2 jyj2  E y2 
2

kðwÞ ¼ n o ð8Þ (b) EEMD separation results

E2 jyj2

where E{} is represent the mathematical expectation.

The optimal linear optimization step calculation formula is
lopt ¼ arg max
l
jkðw þ lgÞj ð9Þ

A typical search direction is the direction of the gradient

g. g = rwk(w).

The optimal step length can be obtained by the following steps:

Step 1: Calculating the optimal step length polynomial coeffi-

cients. The optimal step polynomial is as follow:

X
4
pðlÞ ¼ ak lk ð10Þ
k¼0

The coefficient fak g4k¼0 can be obtained by observing the signal

(c) VMD separation results
and the current value of w and g. Fig. 3. The separation results.
Step 2: Solving the roots of optimal step polynomial fak g4k¼1 .
Step 3: Selecting the roots of the polynomial, so that the abso-
lute value of the objective function is the largest along the 2.3. Continuous wavelet transform
search direction.
 
lopt ¼ arg max kðwðk  1Þ þ lk gÞ ð11Þ Continuous wavelet transform (CWT) can multi-scale analyze
k the noise signals. It has higher time-frequency resolution than
Step 4: Update and normalize: the Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT). It is suitable to analyze
noise signals of diesel engine.
wðkÞ ¼ wðk  1Þ þ lopt g ð12Þ Suppose given a basis function w(t), the wavelet basis function
can be defined as
wðkÞ  
w ðkÞ ¼ ð13Þ 1 tb
kwðkÞk wa;b ðtÞ ¼ pffiffiffi w ð14Þ
a a
 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194 187

For any continuous signal f(t) e L2(R), the wavelet transform is

Z  
 1
1
tb
W f ða; bÞ ¼ f ðtÞ; wa;b ¼ jaj2 f ðtÞw dt ð15Þ
1 a
Morlet wavelet is commonly used for complex wavelet. The
time-frequency resolution is very good. It is suitable to analyze
noise signals with instantaneous shock response. The basis func-
tion is defined as
 2
 2
wðtÞ ¼ p1=4 ejx0 t  ex0 =2 et =2 ð16Þ

where x0 is the circular frequency.

3. Simulation

In order to illustrate the performance of the VMD and the

RobustICA algorithm, some typical signals were selected to carry
out the simulation analysis.
Fig. 4. EMD decomposition for Gaussian white noise signal.
3.1. Separation by EMD, EEMD and VMD

The Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method was pro-

posed by Huang. It is widely used to analyze the mechanical vibra-
tion noise signals. But it is lack of rigorous mathematical theory
support. In addition, when decomposing some signals, the end
effect and modal aliasing problems will appear.
The EEMD method needs to join the Gaussian white noise
before each step of EMD. So it will need a lot of time. It has better
decomposition effect than the EMD. But it cannot completely elim-
inate modal aliasing problem.
The VMD method was proposed by Dragomiretskiy. It has solid
theory foundation. When the frequency components of two signals
are close, the VMD method has better effect than the EMD and
EEMD method.
In order to compare the three methods, the simulation signal
with close frequency component is selected. The related numerical
calculation is studied by MATLAB. The signal S is consist of four
components which are shown as follows:
S1 ¼ cosð2p  4  tÞ
Fig. 5. VMD decomposition for Gaussian white noise signal.
S2 ¼ cosð2p  17  tÞ
where a and b are respectively the scaling factor and the translation
S3 ¼ cosð2p  25  tÞ ð17Þ
factor. wa;b ðtÞ is obtained by shifting and stretching of the basis
4 2
function w(t). So it can get function cluster wa;b ðtÞ. The function clus- S4 ¼ 0:25  cosð2p  600  tÞe10 ðt0:5Þ

ter is the wavelet basis function. S ¼ S1 þ S2 þ S3 þ S4

Fig. 6. The source signal.

188 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194

(a) FastICA calculation results

(b) RobustICA calculation results

Fig. 7. The calculation results.

The highest frequency of the four components is 600 Hz. The
sampling frequency is usually set to 5–10 times of the highest fre-
quency. Here the sampling frequency is selected to 4000 Hz. The
sampling number is 4000. The time domain waveforms are shown
in Fig. 2.
Then the EMD, EEMD and VMD methods are respectively uti-
lized to decompose the simulation signal. The separation results
are shown in Fig. 3.
From Fig. 3(a), when EMD is utilized to decompose the signal,
the serious mode aliasing problem is appeared. It can be seen in
the red1 circle. From Fig. 3(b), the EEMD is adopted to decompose
the signal. It is relatively restored the original signal S1 and S4. But
components, so the filtering properties of EMD and VMD methods
can be compared by breaking down the Gaussian white noise sig-
nal. The length of the Gaussian white noise signal is 1024. The
number of samples is 5000. The decomposition results are shown
in Figs. 4 and 5.
From Figs. 4 and 5, the EMD and the VMD have different filter-
ing characteristics. The EMD can be essentially considered as a bin-
ary bandpass filter group. The VMD can be considered as an equal
Table 1
Basic parameters of the diesel engine.

for the original signal S2 and S3, it still exists a certain degree of Characteristics Parameters
modal aliasing problem. It can be seen in the green circle. From Engine type In-line engine
Fig. 3(c), when the VMD is used to decompose the signal, it can accu- Cylinder number 4
rately restore the four components of the signal S. Stroke number 6
When the EMD, EEMD and VMD methods are used to Cylinder diameter  stroke 126 mm  130 mm
Firing order 1–5–3–6–2–4
decompose the signal, the essence of the decomposition is to use
Maximum output power 175 kW
a set of band-pass filter for filtering the signal [19–21]. Due to Rated power speed 2200 r/min
the Gaussian white noise is uniformly contains various frequency Compression ratio 17:1
Maximum torque 1000 Nm
1
For interpretation of color in Fig. 3, the reader is referred to the web version of Maximum torque speed 1200–1600 rpm
this article.
 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194 189

3.2. Separation by FastICA and RobustICA

The FastICA algorithm is proposed by Hyvärinen [22]. The main

advantage is that the convergence speed is fast. But the FastICA
will not be accurate when the signal is weak or with high spatial
correlation. The RobustICA algorithm is proposed by Zarzoso
et al. It is proved to be robust, and the performance is better than
the FastICA.
The simulation signals are shown in Fig. 6. It is consist of the tri-
angle wave, square wave, cosine signal and pulse sequence signal.
Firstly, the source signals are linear mixed. The mixed matrix is
randomly generated by MATLAB, the mixed matrix is [0.2769
0.6948 0.4387 0.1869; 0.0462 0.3171 0.3816 0.4898; 0.0971
(a) 2 mm lead plate 0.9502 0.7655 0.4456; 0.8235 0.0344 0.7952 0.6463]. Then the Fas-
tICA and the RobustICA are respectively used to extract the inde-
pendent components. The calculation results are shown in Fig. 7.
From Fig. 7(a), the IC3 is different from the S4. There are also
some differences between IC4 and S3. From Fig. 7(b), the RobustICA
calculation results are consistent with the source signals. So it can
be considered that the performance of the RobustICA is better than
the FastICA. When the RobustICA is used to separate the mixed sig-
nals, the time is 0.0746 s, but the FastICA needs 0.1129 s. The
RobustICA is faster than the FastICA.

4. The noise test of diesel engine

The WP10-240 type diesel engine was tested in a semi-anechoic

(b) The second layer of sound insulation cotton
Fig. 8. Diesel engine lead wrapped.
bandwidth wiener filter group. The white noise sequence is finally
broken down into six uniform bandwidth components.
Besides, when the EMD is used to decompose the white noise
sequence, the time is 0.0571 s. When the VMD is utilized to decom-
pose the white noise sequence, the time is 0.0614 s. The required
time is close. But the VMD has better separation effect than the
EMD, since the EMD will appear the modal aliasing problem. Fur-
thermore, the EEMD needs to join the Gaussian white noise at each
step before EMD decomposition, so it will need more time than the
VMD.
chamber. For 6-cylinder diesel engine, there are lots of vibration
and noise sources. In order to isolate other interference noises,
the lead wrapped method was used to wrap the No. 1–5 cylinders,
only the No. 6 cylinder part was bared.
In the test, the single channel near field radiation noise signal of
No. 6 cylinder head was measured. At the same time, the top dead
center (TDC) signal was also measured.
4.1. Test platform
Diesel engine noise test is carried out in a semi-anechoic cham-
ber. The size of the semi-anechoic chamber is length 7.04 m  width
6.79 m  high 5.95 m. The background noise is 18 dB. The total
sound level is 47 dB. The wedge cutoff frequency is 85 Hz.

Noise source identification system

WP10-240 type diesel engine

Single-channel noise
Microphone TDC sensor signal

NI cDAQ9172 VMD

NI9234
NI9205
RobustICA

LabVIEW integrated data

CWT
acquisition system

Data processing Noise source

system identification results

Fig. 9. The test system and noise source identification flowchar.

190
(a)The sensor for cylinder head radiated
noise and TDC sensor
(b) The sensor for piston slap noise
(c) The No.6 cylinder measuring point
Fig. 10. Test sensor arrangement.
The test platform is consist of WP10-240 type high speed diesel
engine, transmission axis, German Siemens 1PL6 AC motor,
motored console and other control components, etc. The basic
parameters of the diesel engine are shown in Table 1.
Table 2
The diesel engine test condition.
Test condition Speed (rpm)
1 Normal condition 600
2 Drag condition 600
J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194
Amplitude/Pa
5
0
-5
0 180 360 540 720
Crank angle/ °
Fig. 11. The noise signal of the cylinder head.
0.4
0.3
Amplitude/Pa
X: 1.203 X: 3.814
0.2 Y: 0.1421 Y: 0.1395
0.1
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Frequency/KHz
Fig. 12. The FFT of the noise signal of the cylinder head.
4.2. Pretreatment before test
In the noise test, lots of noise sources exists in diesel engine, so
it is intricate to directly separate and identify them. Therefore, the
lead wrapped method is adopted to isolate the interference sources
as far as possible. The lead wrapped method is to use high sound
transmission loss material (stereotype) to wrap the sound source
interference parts, and the test parts are exposed.
The specific process of lead wrapped method is as follows, as
shown in Fig. 8. Firstly, the exhaust main of diesel engine was con-
nected to outdoor by a long pipe. Then the cylinder head, oil sump
and thin-walled place were wrapped by high density sound
insulation cotton. The whole machine was wrapped by the 2 mm
thick lead plate. In order to wrap completely as far as possible, each
corner was to multi-layer wrapped. Finally, the lead plate was again
covered by the 8 mm thick high density sound insulation cotton.
4.3. Test system
The test system is mainly included the NI9234 acquisition mod-
ule which the highest sampling rate can be up to 51.2 kHz. The
noise signals were measured by DGO 9767 CD electret microphone
which sensitivity is 50 mV/Pa. And the frequency response range is
within 20 Hz–20 kHz. The top dead center signal was measured by
SM-12-100 type magnetic sensor. The test system and noise source
identification flowchart is shown in Fig. 9.
During the test, the No. 6 cylinder is set as the research object.
The layout of the sensor arrangement is shown in Fig. 10. The
microphone is mounted 1 cm away from the cylinder head when
measuring the near field radiated noise signals of the cylinder head.
The test is mainly in the diesel engine normal condition and the
drag condition. When in normal condition, the diesel engine is pro-
duced the combustion noise and the mechanical noise. But in drag
Load (%) condition, the diesel engine is only produced the mechanical noise,
not produced the combustion noise. In the test, the sampling fre-
0
0 quency is 25,600 Hz. The diesel engine is operated in 600 rpm. In
this condition, the diesel engine is running stability, so the noise
 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194 191

Table 3
The modal number and their center frequencies.

Modal number K Center frequencies (Hz)

K=3 387 3768 5766
K=4 384 3768 5764 7710
K=5 244 1255 3783 5772 7788
K=6 243 1251 3783 5773 7297 7954

Table 4
IC1
The correlation coefficient of each IMF component and

Amplitude/Pa
the measured signal. 10
IMF Correlation coefficient
0
1 0.5427
2 0.4886 -10
3 0.5210
4 0.4030 0 120 240 360 480 600 720
5 0.4094
Crank angle/°
6 0.2443
7 0.2766 (a) The time domain waveform of IC1
8 0.2478
9 0.0852
10 0.0069 0.4
11 0.0054

Amplitude/Pa
0.3
X: 3.7
2 0.2 Y: 0.3074
u1

0
-2
0.1
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
2
0
u2

0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
-2 Frequency/KHz
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
5 (b) The FFT of IC1
u3

0
-5
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
1
u4

0
-1
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
1
u5

0
-1
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
Crank angle/°

Fig. 13. The VMD decomposition results. (c) The CWT of IC1
sources are relatively easy to identify. The specific conditions of the Fig. 14. The time domain waveform, FFT and CWT of IC1 by the
test are shown in Table 2. VMD-RobustICA-CWT method.
The noise signal of the cylinder head was measured by test, as
shown in Fig. 11. The FFT is shown in Fig. 12. to decompose the noise signals. But the variational modal number
should be known before. Due to each variational mode component
5. Noise source separation and identification of diesel engine has different center frequency, so the optimal variational modal
number K can be determined through observation. The calculation
In this part, the VMD-RobustICA-CWT method and the EEMD- results are shown in Table 3.
RobustICA-CWT method are respectively adopted to separate and From Table 4, when the modal number K value is 6, there are
identify the noise sources of diesel engine. two center frequencies 7297 Hz and 7954 Hz. In this test, it can
be considered over decomposition when the center frequencies
5.1. VMD-RobustICA-CWT method of two variational modal components are less than 1000 Hz. So
the optimal modal number K value is 5. The variational mode com-
The VMD-RobustICA-CWT method is used to identify the noise ponents can be obtained through variational mode decomposition
sources of diesel engine. The first step is to use the VMD algorithm algorithm. The results are shown in Fig. 13.
192 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194

IC2
Amplitude/Pa

-5
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
Crank angle/°
(a) The time domain waveform of IC2

0.4

0.3
Amplitude/Pa

0.2 X: 1.325
Y: 0.2571
0.1

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Frequency/KHz
(b) The FFT of IC2

(c) The CWT of IC2

Fig. 15. The time domain waveform, FFT and CWT of IC2 by the
VMD-RobustICA-CWT method.

0.2
Amplitude/Pa

IC2
0.1 piston slap noise
Fig. 17. The EEMD decomposition results.

0 cylinder head are mainly the combustion excitation and the piston
0 1 2 3
Frequency/KHz
Fig. 16. The FFT of the IC2 component and the piston slap noise.
Then the variational modal components and the original noise
signals are formed a new signal group. The RobustICA algorithm
is applied to extract the independent components. Each indepen-
dent component obtained may correspond to each noise source
of diesel engine.
The target of the test is to separate the combustion noise and
the piston slap noise. The radiated noise excitation sources of the
4 5 6
slap excitation. Then the calculation results are further analyzed
through combining the continuous wavelet transform method
and the prior knowledge of the diesel engine. It can be initially
determined the two components are the combustion noise and
the piston slap noise. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and contin-
uous wavelet transform (CWT) of IC1 and IC2 are respectively
shown in Figs. 14 and 15.
From Fig.14, the frequency of IC1 component is focused on
3700 Hz. Through the time domain waveform of IC1, the signal
amplitude has greater change around 370°CA. As shown in Fig.14
(c), due to the No. 1–5 cylinders are wrapped by lead, so the energy
of No. 6 cylinder is larger than the others. The ignition sequence of
 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194 193

IC1 20 IC1
0

Amplitude/Pa
-20 10
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
10 0
IC2

0
-10 -10
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
20 0 120 240 360 480 600 720
IC3

0 Crank angle/ °
-20
0 120 240 360 480 600 720 (a) The time domain waveform of IC1
5
IC4

0 0.4
-5 X: 3.775
0 120 240 360 480 600 720

Amplitude/Pa
0.3 Y: 0.2392
1
IC5

0
-1 0.2
0 120 240 360 480 600 720
5 0.1
IC6

0
-5
0 120 240 360 480 600 720 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Crank angle/ °
Frequency/KHz
Fig. 18. The RobustICA calculation results.
(b) The FFT of IC1

the diesel engine is 1–5–3–6–4, the ignition angle of the No. 6

cylinder is the 370°CA. Thus, the IC1 component is caused by com-
bustion excitation, it is the combustion noise.
In order to further determine the IC2 component, comparing
the IC2 component with the piston slap noise which is measured
in the drag condition. The FFT of the IC2 component and the piston
slap noise is shown in Fig. 16.
From Fig. 15, the frequency of IC2 component is focused on
1325 Hz. As shown in Fig. 15(c), the noise energy of each cylinder
can be clearly shown. The noise energy of No. 6 cylinder is
larger than other cylinders. From Fig. 16, the FFT of the IC2
component and the piston slap noise are basically consistent.
But the frequency of piston slap noise below 1000 Hz is larger
than the IC2 component. The possible reason is that there are
other noise sources were measured except the piston slap noise
in the drag condition. It needs to further identify the other noise
sources. But the main noise source is the piston slap noise. So it
can be considered that the IC2 component is the piston slap
noise.
5.2. EEMD-RobustICA-CWT method
Firstly, the EEMD algorithm is adopted to decompose the noise
signal of the cylinder head, the calculation results are shown in
Fig. 17.
The correlation analysis is calculated for each IMF component
and the measured noise signal. The calculation results are shown
in Table 4.
From Table 4, it can be seen that the correlation coefficient of
IMF1-IMF5 components are all above 0.4. So the IMF1-IMF5 com-
ponents have good correlation with the measured signal. Then
the measured signal and the IMF1-IMF5 components are combined
into a new set of signal group. The RobustICA algorithm is utilized
to extract the independent components. The calculation results are
shown in Fig. 18.
From Fig. 18, there are six independent components. Each inde-
pendent component may be corresponded to each noise source of
diesel engine. Due to the main purpose is to separate and identify
the combustion noise and the piston slap noise. According to the
(c) The CWT of IC1
Fig. 19. The time domain waveform, FFT and CWT of IC1 by the
EEMD-RobustICA-CWT method.
prior knowledge of the diesel engine and the calculation results,
the IC1 and IC2 maybe the combustion noise and the piston slap
noise. The Fast Fourier Transform and continuous wavelet trans-
form of IC1 and IC2 are shown in Figs. 19and 20.
From Fig. 19, it can be seen that the frequency of IC1 is focus on
3775 Hz. But it also has other frequency components. It can be seen
in the red circle.
From Fig. 20(b), the frequency of IC2 is focus on 1353 Hz. In
Fig. 20(c), the frequency energy of No. 5 cylinder and No. 3 cylinder
is about the same with the frequency energy of No. 6 cylinder. It
can be seen in the red circle. Since No. 1–5 cylinders of diesel
engine are wrapped by lead, the frequency energy should be small.
Thus, it can be considered that the separation results have other
interference noises.
In the EEMD-RobustICA-CWT method, it is preliminarily ascer-
tained that the IC1 and IC2 are respectively the combustion noise
and the piston slap noise.
Comparing with the VMD-RobustICA-CWT method, the
obtained separation results through the EEMD-RobustICA-CWT
method are still contains other ingredients of noises. It cannot
get each pure independent noise. Thus, it can be considered that
the VMD-RobustICA-CWT method has better performance than
the EEMD-RobustICA-CWT method for diesel engine.
194 J. Yao et al. / Applied Acoustics 116 (2017) 184–194

IC2 and identify the combustion noise and the piston slap noise.
5
Amplitude/Pa

Comparing with the EEMD-RobustICA-CWT method, the

independent noises obtained by the proposed method are
0 more accurate and pure with less other interference noises.

-5
0 120 240 360 480 600 720 Acknowledgment
Crank angle/ °
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
(a) The time domain waveform of IC2 dation of China – P. R. China (Grant No. 51279148).

0.8 References

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(b) The FFT of IC2
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Fig. 20. The time domain waveform, FFT
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6. Conclusions
(1) In the test, the No. 1–5 cylinders were wrapped by lead, only
the No. 6 cylinder part was bared. From the physical level,
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