In order to maintain vibration performances within the limits of the design,a vibration-based feature extraction method for dynamic characteristic using empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and wavelet analysis was proposed.The proposed method was verified experimentally and numerically by implementing the scheme on engine block.In the implementation process,the following steps were identified to be important:1) EMD technique in order to solve the feature extraction of vibration signals; 2) Vibration measurement for the purpose of confirming the structural weak regions of engine block in experiment; 3) Finite element modeling for the purpose of determining dynamic characteristic in time region and frequency region to affirm the comparability of response character corresponding to improvement schemes; 4) Adopting a feature index ofIMF for structural improvement based on EMD and wavelet analysis.The obtained results show that IMF of signal is more sensitive to response character corresponding to improvement schemes.Finally,examination of the results confirms that the proposed vibration-based feature extraction method is very robust,and focuses on the relative merits of modification and full-scale structural optimization of engine,together with the creation of new low-vibration designs.