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Aim of the ongoing development of passenger cars is to predict the interior acoustics early in the development process. A significant noise component results from the flow phenomena in the area of the side window. Wind noise is a physical problem that involves the three complicated aspects each governed by different physics: The complex turbulent flow field in the wake of the a-pillar and the side mirror is characterized by velocity and pressure fluctuations. The flow field generates sound which is transmitted into the passenger cabin. In addition to that, it excites the structure, resulting in a radiation of structure-borne noise into the interior of the car. Therefore, the sound generation is governed by fluid dynamics of the air flow. The sound transmission through the structure due to vibrations is determined by structural mechanics of the body structure. The sound propagation inside the cabin is influenced by interior room acoustics.

This paper focuses on the applicability of numerical prediction of sound radiation caused by an axial vehicle cooling fan. To investigate the applicability of numerical methods, a hybrid approach is chosen where first a CFD simulation is performed and the sound radiation is calculated in a second step. For the acoustic simulation an integral method described by Ffowcs-Williams-Hawkings is used to predict the sound propagation in the far-field. The simulation results are validated with experiments. The corresponding setup in experiments and simulation represents an overall system which includes the cooler, the cooling fan and a combustion engine dummy. To optimize the economical applicability in terms of simulation setup and run time, different approaches are investigated. This includes the simulation of only one blade using a periodic boundary condition as compared to the whole fan geometry. In the CFD simulation an SAS-turbulence-model is applied.