Florin Marcu

Dr. Marcu is a mechanical engineer with deep industry experience in dynamics, vibration and noise of earth moving equipment and heavy trucks. He has extensive experience evaluating the effect of vibrations on vehicle occupants with a particular interest in seats and cabin suspensions. 

Dr. Marcu has conducted vibration testing both in a lab and in the field with the purpose of evaluating occupant comfort, health and safety, component durability, and vehicle dynamics. He has led vehicle noise mitigation projects and has experience improving the quality of audible alerts. Dr. Marcu has hands-on experience with sensor selection, subjective and objective testing, and noise and vibration data analysis. Dr. Marcu's work has included support for litigation, risk management and inspections for injury cases, and he has served as an industry expert on several ISO and SAE standards committees.

Dr. Marcu leverages his extensive industry and educational experience to investigate failures in all types of complex mechanical systems and equipment — from mobile equipment to machinery, to industrial production systems, to commercial and residential building equipment and consumer products.

Dr. Marcu's expertise includes:

• Vehicle vibration and its effect on structures, occupants, and vehicle performance
• Passive and active suspension systems
• Seats and seat belts
• Vehicle noise (interior and exterior)
• Construction, mining, and earth moving equipment
• On and off-highway trucks
• Shake and vibration table testing for durability and performance, including human vibration testing
• Field testing
• Immersive, interactive vehicle ride simulators
• Ride Simulator and Motion sickness
• Sensor selection and data acquisition
• Noise and vibration data analysis
• Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) safety training

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Marcu led the noise and vibration work at Kenworth trucks. This followed 9 years at Caterpillar where he led the ride simulator laboratory and conducted research on human vibration, semiactive seat and cabin suspensions using a human-rated, 6 degree of freedom shake table. He also investigated incidents related to reported operator actions.

Dr. Marcu has a background in mechanical engineering consistently straddling the divide between theory and application. During his doctoral work at Virginia Tech he developed a dynamic model of a semitruck from first principles which he used to develop a control algorithm for a semiactive cab suspension. Once the model was complete, he modified a semi truck, installed a new cab suspension system, implemented the real-time controller and conducted all the lab and field tuning of the system. His dissertation work culminated in delivery of a working prototype truck with a novel, working semiactive cab suspension.

While completing the Ph.D. work, Dr. Marcu built up a machine shop and developed the IT infrastructure in the research lab. He also performed maintenance on the facility's IT and lab equipment.