FEM simulation research of natural frequency vibration of crankshaft from internal combustion engine

The article presents vibration simulation studies of a crankshaft used in internal combustion engine. The simulation was performed using FEM method. The study was conducted in Abaqus software, and a shaft model was implemented in Catia v5. The influence of a mesh element size on the results of obtained calculations was analysed. A shaft which will be used in the ultralight aircraft engine was the subject of research. Results show the first 10 frequency modes and 12 grid examples for various element sizes, from 9 to 1.3 mm. Moreover, the effect of mesh size on the obtained results is presented. It has been proven that the maximum error for two extreme results (the densest and sparsest grid) is approximately 1.4%; therefore, it is justified to carry out calculations of own vibration on a fatal grid. Results presented herein will be used in the future work on the crankshaft geometry modifications