Shake, rattle and roll.

By Jim Wier

Clockwise starting far left: small semi-enclosed speaker, unenclosed speaker with covered back, larger semi-enclosed speaker, larger unenclosed speaker with holes in back.

With all due respect to Bill Haley and the Comets (and Elvis), who recorded this rock classic in the mid-1950s, our version of this vibratory model will concern itself with a propulsion system that is converting petrochemicals into noise, vibration and thrust simultaneously.

Say what? In the vernacular, the engine/propeller combination is burning, shaking and rolling. The burning is fine (it makes us power) and the rolling is fine (it pulls us through the air), but the shaking is bad (it wears out and cracks other parts). The thrust (pardon the pun) of this series of articles is to try to figure out how to measure and correct the vibration in our firewall-forward propulsion systems. …

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