In the early design stage of a vehicle, simulation of interior noise is useful for assessment and enhancement of the noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) performance. Traditional transfer path analysis (TPA) technology cannot simulate interior noise since it uses an experimental method. In order to solve this problem, hybrid TPA is employed in this paper. Hybrid TPA uses simulated excitation force as the input force, which excites the flexible body of a car at the mount points, while traditional TPA uses the measured force. This simulated force is obtained by numerical analysis of the finite element (FE) model of a powertrain. Interior noise is predicted by multiplying the simulated force by the vibro-acoustic transfer function (VATF) of the vehicle. The VATF is the acoustic response in the compartment of a car to the input force at the mount point of the powertrain in the flexible car body. The trend of the predicted interior noise based on the hybrid TPA corresponds very well to the measured interior noise, with some difference due to not only experimental error and simulation error, but also the effect of the airborne path.

The excitation force of a powertrain is one of major sources of interior noise in a vehicle. This paper presents a novel approach to predict the interior noise caused by the vibration of the powertrain by using the hybrid TPA (transfer path analysis) method. Although the traditional transfer path analysis (TPA) is useful for the identification of powertrain noise sources, it is difficult to modify the structure of a powertrain by using experiments for the reduction of vibration and noise. In order to solve this problem, the vibration of the powertrain in a vehicle is numerically analyzed by using the finite element method (FEM). The vibration of the other parts of the vehicle is investigated by using experiments based on vibrato-acoustic transfer function (VATF) analysis. These two methods are combined for the prediction of interior noise caused by a powertrain. Throughout this research, two papers are presented. This paper presents a simulation of the excitation force of the powertrain exciting the vehicle body based on numerical simulation. The other paper presents a prediction of interior noise based on the hybrid TPA, which uses the VATF of the car body and the excitation force predicted in this paper.

In an internal combustion engine, the impulsive sounds are very often radiated owing to the faults of the engine. Thus it is important for a noise, vibration, and harshness engineer to detect and analyse impulsive sound signals for both fault diagnoses. However, it is often difficult to detect and identify impulsive signals because of interfering signals such as those due to engine firing, harmonics of crankshaft speed, and broadband noise components. These interferences hinder the early detection of faults and improvement of sound quality. In order to overcome this difficulty, a two-stage adaptive line enhancer which is capable of enhancing impulsive signals embedded in background noise is developed. This method is used to pre-process signals prior to time-frequency analysis via a bilinear methods such as the Wigner-Ville distribution and the Choi-Williams distribution.

In a nuclear power plant, impact force due to loose part is related to the structural damage in the plant. In general, the steam generator of the nuclear power plant is structured by thick plate. The paper presents a novel approach to locate an impact load in a thick plate. The approach is based on the analysis of the acoustic waveforms measured by a sensor array located on the plate surface. For accurate estimation of the location of the impact source, the time differences in the arrival times of the waves at the sensors and their propagation velocities are determined. The dispersion curves for multi modes of Lamb wave are calculated by using exact plate theory and SDPT. It is difficult to measure directly the group velocity for Lamb mode of acoustic waveform in the thick plate because they are dispersive wave. However, most of the energy in the wave is carried by the flexural waves (A0 mode), the group velocity of this mode is extracted using the CHOTF technique for estimating the impact source location. The estimates are shown to be in excellent agreement with the actual locations and it is applied to the damage analysis due to the loose part in a nuclear power plant.