NVH Prediction and Real-Time Auralization for Virtually Assembled Vehicles: An Overview of the Technology

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The current trend toward hybrid and electric automotive powertrains increases the complexity of the vehicle development and integration work for the NVH engineers. For example, considering that the combustion noise is reduced or absent, secondary noise sources like drivetrain, auxiliary systems, road and wind noise become of relevance in terms of vehicle noise comfort. This trend combined with the shortening of vehicle development cycle, the increased number of vehicle variants and an increasingly competitive marketing landscape, force engineers to front-load their design choices to the early stages of the development process using advanced engineering analysis tools. In this context, innovative technologies such as Virtual Prototype Assembly (VPA) and NVH simulator provide the right support to the engineer’s needs when developing the vehicles of the future. The VPA technology enables target assembly noise predictions using the dynamic substructuring methodology starting from individual component models that are derived from simulation or test bench measurements. The NVH simulator, through a digital representation of the vehicle noise and vibration signature (NVH model), enables objective and subjective vehicle sound quality judgment while executing driving scenarios that have not been measured experimentally or fully simulated numerically. The NVH model can be based on data measured on an existing vehicle (top-down approach), on a VPA assembly of individual components characterized in laboratory or through simulation (bottom-up approach), or on a mix of both approaches. Moreover, engineers can, in an NVH simulator environment, interact with the virtual vehicle executing several driving scenarios in a realistic and interactive experience through a vehicle performance model connecting the running operation of the powertrain to the NVH model in a real-time co-simulation framework. In this paper the different technological building blocks will be described. Finally, industrial applications for road noise and electric powertrain noise will be presented and the elements of the methodological process will be validated.</div></div>