Yūsuke Iwasaki
Joined the company in 2015, member of R&D SV Verification Group
Master of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology
How can we suppress invisible sound and vibration?
The SV Verification Group deals with product sound and vibration. MUSASHI products, such as differential gears and transmission gears, which transmit engine power, generate noise and vibration whenever they are engaged and rotated. We are trying our best to design and manufacture prototypes to meet more than the demand of our clients in terms of the sounds. If there is no specific requirement from our customers, we propose the target value and make sure to achieve it. We conduct tests and create a prototype to measure sound and vibration and identify areas that need to be addressed.
We coordinate with the designer and give directions such as "In order to reduce the volume to this level, the thickness of this part should be thicker and the shape of the tooth surface should be more like this.".
Then, after the countermeasure of the prototype is done, we test it again. Since conducting repeated testing is difficult and testing procedure takes time, cost and labor, we are using various measuring instruments and analysis methods to work with invisible sounds and vibrations.
To be able to present clear and concrete improvement measures to designers
The causes of sound are complex and involve complex factors related to other parts, such as the transmission path of power, as well as the gear itself, such as the dimensional accuracy, rigidity, and natural frequency of the tooth surface. The parameters are infinite. Even if you think that the countermeasure works, it could work the other way around. It's not simple, but once you get the positive result, the feeling of satisfaction is high. Though It's unlikely to work out at one time. However, the SV Verification Group, which initially only measured sound and vibration, has now improved its technology to the point where it can propose a direction for improvement in design. The next step is to give clear direction such as, "Please reduce the dimension if this part by △ mm so that we can reduce the sound by ○ dB". For that, we are starting to take on more research work, testing and accumulating data to clarify the correlation between sound and design.
