Simulation of contact bouncing behavior in starter solenoid and exploring potential feasible solution

In this paper, investigation on starter solenoid to develop a generalized model based simulation methodology to simulate contact bounce characteristics and tuning of the parameters to reduce or eliminate the contact bounce in existing solenoids complying with all functional and cost constraints. Using the measured data, a generalized model based simulation methodology is built using Matlab Simulink to establish contact bouncing characteristics, which is highly non-linear in nature, under various conditions/parametric variations like electromagnetic force, air gap, hard stops, spring rate and mass. The simulation model reveals that the contact bounce is reduced to zero when the stiffness of the spindle spring is in the range of 1050 N/m to 1250 N/m. Thus we can conclude that the methodology adopted helps in understanding the characteristics of existing solenoids and providing practical suggestions for potential feasible modifications that can be incorporated in the existing solenoids so as to tune their physical system parameters for an optimum response.