Abstract
The oil pan is an important factor for the noise behavior of the engine system. In this paper a new Magnesium oil pan was designed and analyzed to replace the current Aluminium oil pan. Dynamic stiffness and sound pressure level of the newly designed Mg oil pan were compared with the AI oil pan using the finite element method. NVH characteristics of the Mg oil pan is slightly insufficient when we changed the material of the oil pan from Al to Mg without modifying the design. Some design modifications of the Mg oil pan resulted in equal or superior characteristics compared to the Al oil pan. New ribs were added to stiffen the structure of the Mg oil pan. Thickness of thin plate area was increased to reduce the radiated noise. Through the changes of shape, higher dynamic stiffness than the current Al oil pan were achieved. Results of frequency response analysis show that we can reduce the sound pressure level of the oil pan if we increase the thickness of the thin plate area. It is shown that the new Mg oil pan could reduce the weight of the engine system and improve NVH quality of an automobile.