Passive vibration control of an automotive component using evolutionary optimisation

In this paper, the use of multiobjective evolutionary optimisers for passive vibration suppression of an automotive component is demonstrated. The component is used to connect a car engine to some point of a car body between the front seats. Under such a circumstance, the structure is subject to several mechanical phenomena e.g. stress failure, fatigue, vibration resonance, and vibration transmissibility. The optimisation problem is posed to find structural shape and size such that maximising structural natural frequency and simultaneously minimising structural mass while constraints include stress failure and displacement. The multiobjective optimiser employed is the multiobjective version of Population-Based Incremental Learning (PBIL) with and without using a surrogate model. The optimum results obtained are illustrated and discussed. It is found that the proposed design scheme is effective and efficient for an automotive component design.