Int. J. Vehicle Noise and Vibration, Vol. , No. ,  Copyright © 20 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Modelling neutral gear rattle for a light commercial vehicle Mrunal Kshirsagar, Satyajit R. Patil* and Ansar A. Mulla Automobile Engineering Department, Rajarambapu Institute of Technology, Sakharale, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, 415414, India Email: mrunalkshirsagar19@gmail.com Email: satyajit.patil@ritindia.edu Email: ansar.mulla@ritindia.edu *Corresponding author Sudhir P. Takalkar MSL Driveline Systems Ltd., Nasik, Maharashtra, 422007, Inda Email: spt@msldriveline.com Abstract: Acoustic levels have a significant influence on the ride comfort of road vehicles. Among the others, gear rattling noise is a significant problem faced by the car industry. Automotive powertrains areto andisolatethetorsionalvibrationsresponsibleforgearrattling.This work addresses  problem of reducing gear rattle while the engine is idling. The by introducing the pre-damper clutch plate instead of a conventional clutch plate that uses torsional vibration springs. A M/Simulinkmodel is developed to estimate the effect of spring stiffness on the rattle index of the system. The output of the model is validated experimentally and the accuracy of the Simulink model is reported. The rattle index was successfully decreased with the help of a pre-damped clutch plate, and the model is found to be accurate enough to estimate the rattle index. Keywords: neutral gear rattle; torsional vibrations; pre-damper spring; rattle index. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kshirsagar, M., Patil, S.R., Mulla, A.A. and Takalkar, S.P. () ‘Modelling neutral gear rattle for a light commercial vehicle’, Int. J. Vehicle Noise and Vibration, Vol. , No. , pp.. Biographical notes: Mrunal Kshirsagar is a post-graduate in Automotive Engineering and currently pursuing her PhD from VJTI, Mumbai University, Mumbai, India. Her research areas are automotive brakes, contact mechanics, NVH and friction.