The problem of damping torsional vibrations of the crankshaft of a multi-cylinder engine is very important from the point of view of the durability and operational reliability of the drive unit. Over the years, attempts have been made to eliminate these vibrations and the phenomena accompanying them using various methods. One of the methods that effectively increases the durability and reliability of the drive unit is the use of a torsional vibration damper. The torsional vibration damper is designed and selected individually for a given drive system. A well-selected damper reduces the amplitude of the torsional vibrations of the shaft in the entire operating speed range of the engine. This paper proposes a thermo-hydrodynamic model of a viscous torsional vibration damper that enables the determination of the correct operating temperature range of the damper. The input parameters for the model, in particular the angular velocities of the damper elements as well as the geometric and mass dimensions of the damper were determined on a test stand equipped with a six-cylinder diesel engine equipped with a factory torsional vibration damper. The damper surface operating temperatures used in model verification were measured with a laser pyrometer. The presented comparative analysis of the results obtained numerically (theoretically) and the results obtained experimentally allow us to conclude that the proposed damper model gives an appropriate approximation to reality and can be used in the process of selecting a damper for the drive unit.
Keywords: crankshaft; internal combustion engine; saturation time; temperature; torsional vibrations; vibration damper.