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The NVH study of trimmed vehicle body is essential in improving the passenger comfort and optimizing the vehicle weight. Efficient modal finite-element approaches are widely used in the automotive industry for investigating the frequency response of large vibro-acoustic systems involving a body structure coupled to an acoustic cavity. In order to accurately account for the localized and frequency-dependant damping mechanism of the trim components, a direct physical approach is however preferred. Thus, a hybrid modal-physical approach combines both efficiency and accuracy for large trimmed body analysis. Dynamic loads and exterior acoustic loads can then be applied on the trimmed body model in order to evaluate the transfer functions between these loads and the acoustic response in the car compartment.

An important trend among vehicle NVH engineers is the production of attractive engine acceleration sound quality for the enhancement of a vehicle's image and performance. In addition, customers have increasing interest and enjoyment in customizing their cars to reflect their personal taste and preferences. The PESS (Personalized Engine Sound System) has been developed for making a unique and individually customizable vehicle concept. The system allows the customers an opportunity to create a variety of engine sounds in a single vehicle using active sound design technology. In this system, three different engine sound concepts are pre-defined, Dynamic, Sporty, and Extreme. Each of the engine sounds can then be adjusted with parameters that determine the timbre, such as main order, rumble, and high order. In addition, the pedal position during acceleration has also been used as a parameter to further personalize the experience.

This paper focuses on the optimization of the cross-section of a panel type impact door beam. The key parameters of the cross-section of the beam were artificially changed by using a geometry morphing tool FCM (Fast Concept Modeler), which is plugged in to CATIA. Then, the metamodel of FE (Finite Element) analysis results was created and optimized using LS-OPT. The ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) analysis of results was carried out to find the factor of weight reduction. Finally, a new cross section concept was proposed to overcome the limitation of old structure. The optimization was carried out for the beam with the final cross-section to have 10 % or more reduction in total weight.

Fuel sloshing noise is involved with flow motion inside fuel tanks as well as structural characteristics of vehicles. Therefore it is necessary to introduce Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis to predict sloshing noise phenomena more accurately. Purposes of this paper are to verify the reliability of the FSI method and suggest new CAE analysis processes to predict fuel sloshing noise. The vibration of floor panels induced by sloshing impact is evaluated through FSI analysis. A series of tests is carried out to validate simulation results. The numerical optimization of parameters is also carried out to reduce computation time. In addition, effects of sloshing noise factors are discussed based on simulation and test results. Lastly, a method to predict fuel sloshing noise by exerting sloshing load on a vehicle is suggested.

The Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) process consists of four phases, identification & definition of opportunity, concept development, design optimization, and design verification. In the phase of concept development, TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is useful for creating new ideas from the present ideas, which includes the trimming strategy, the antidote strategy, and the picket fence strategy. In this paper, systems of a vehicle such as Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) engine, windshield wiper blade, and Continuously Variable Valve Actuation (CVVA) of engine, are selected and new concepts for each system are created by applying the previously mentioned three strategies. FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis), the latter part in the phase of concept development in DFSS, is conducted for newly generated concepts of systems that are mentioned above. As a result of FMEA, it is found that the wind lift of the wiper blade can be a serious problem.

A sliding door is one of the car door systems, which is generally applied to the vans. Compared with swing doors, a sliding door gives comfort to the passengers when they get in or out the car. With an increasing number of the family-scale activities, there followed a huge demand on the vans, which caused growing interests in the convenience technology of the sliding door system. A typical sliding door system has negative effects on the vehicle interior package and the operating effort. Since the door should move backward without touching the car body, the trajectory of the center rail should be a curve. The curve-shaped center rail infiltrates not only the passenger shoulder room, but also the opening flange curve, which results in the interior package loss. Moreover, as the passenger pulls the door outside handle along the normal direction of the door outer skin, the curved rail causes the opening effort loss.

In this research, the influence of tire size and shape on sound radiation in the mid-frequency region was studied. First, the relationship between the structural wave propagation characteristics of a tire excited at one point and its sound radiation was identified by using FE and BE analyses. Then, by using that relationship, the effect of modifying a tire's aspect ratio, width and wheel diameter on its sound radiation between 300 Hz and 800 Hz was investigated. Finally, an optimization of the sound radiation was performed by modification of the tire structure and shape. It was found that most of a tire's structural vibration does not contribute to sound radiation. In particular, the effective radiation was found to occur at the frequencies where low wave number components of the longitudinal wave and the flexural wave first appear.

Door slam noise is very important sound, because Door Slam noise gives a big effect in high-class feeling of vehicle and brand identity. But it is very difficult to analyze door slam noise by traditional analysis and overall sound level. Moreover, the short occurrence time of Door Slam noise makes the analysis more difficult. In this paper, we used the latest developed sound quality methods for analyzing Door Slam noise. And we had performed jury test for luxury vehicles. After that we had carried out correlation analysis between objective analysis and subjective test. Finally, we could suggest Door Slam noise Index by linear regression analysis.

The primary purpose of using a plastic material instead of conventional aluminum cast for intake manifold is to reduce its weight and cost. Moreover, the use of plastic for intake manifold is regarded as a key for further development of so called an “intake modular system”. As a secondary effect, the engine power can be increased with the help of improved interior surface roughness and lowered air temperature. With regard to NVH, however, plastic intake manifold is considered somewhat negative since it is less rigid and less dense than aluminum one. In this paper, the mechanism that plastic intake manifold affects the performance and NVH of in-line 4 cylinder gasoline engine is presented. In connection with engine performance, air flow efficiency of not only intake manifold itself but also other components of intake system and also cylinder head is evaluated.

On-center feel is a multivariate problem that a performance is represented using put-together several sub-characteristics such as torque feedback, response, torque linearity, hysteresis, returnability, etc. For the improvement of a multivariate problem, multi objective optimization should be carried out. However each characteristic which ignores correlation between characteristics is usually optimized up to now. The objective of this research, Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) technique is grafted to on-center steering feel to obtain the efficient improvement. MTS technique can optimize the unified on-center index which is generated in consideration of correlation between characteristics. In this research, first an effective value of MTS technique is verified with on-center steering feel which has the multivariate characteristic. Second, on-center steering feel is improved using MTS technique and Design of Experiments (DOE).

The multi-function drive plate used for a high performance engine was developed by optimizing its structure, material and design features. To do so, the investigation of the load characteristics was done in order to increase FEA reliability. DFSS was utilized for optimizing the design features and defining the effect of geometric parameters on the durability. The durability of the optimized drive plate was verified by comparing the FEA and test results with other drive plates which were already verified. Finally, the real powertrain test was done to confirm its durability for a high performance engine.

For optimizing the performance of SI engine such as engine torque, fuel consumption, and emissions, various types of system for variable valve timing were developed by many automotive researchers. In this paper, we investigated the relationship between valve timing and intake orifice noise, and suggested how to improve NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance as well as engine torque. Some experiments using the engine dynamometer were carried over about 150 different operating conditions. BEM analysis was also conducted in order to calculate acoustic modes of intake system. The results show that the valve timing and overlap of breathing systems have influence on NVH behavior, especially intake orifice noise over whole range of operating conditions. Valve timing and overlap of intake and exhaust valve were optimized in the view of sound quality as well as overall noise level.

Applying BSM (Balance shaft module) is a very common and effective way to reduce the 2nd-order powertrain vibration which is caused by the ill-balanced inertia force due to the oscillating masses inside an engine. However, the adoption of a BSM can also produce undesirable things especially in cost, fuel economy, starting performance, and so on. Therefore, for small vehicles, in which case cost and weight are key factors at the development stage, it is often required to develop competitive NVH performance without the expensive apparatus like a BSM. In this paper, in order to develop interior noise and vibration of a 4-cylinder vehicle without a BSM, we analyzed the contribution of some transfer paths for powertrain vibration, and could reduce interior booming noise by tuning the dynamic characteristic of the engine mount which was one of the largest transfer paths.

With the recent development of technologies for interpreting vibration and noise of vehicles, it has become possible for carmakers to reduce idle vibration and driving noise in the phase of preceding development. Thus, the issue of noise generation is drawing keen attention from production of prototype car through mass-production development. J. D. Power has surveyed the levels of customer satisfaction with all vehicles sold in the U.S. market and released the Initial Quality Study (IQS) index. As a growing number of emotional quality-related items are added to the IQS evaluation index, it is necessary to secure a sufficiently high quality level of low-frequency speaker sound against rattle noise. It is required to make a preceding review on the package tray panel, which is located at the bottom of the rear glass where the woofer speakers of a passenger sedan are installed, the door module panel in which the door speakers are built.

The development of a new method to evaluate the NVH quality of diesel combustion noise bases upon following questions by regarding typical driving modes: Driving behavior with diesel vehicles Which driving situation causes an annoying diesel combustion noise Judgment of diesel combustion noise as good or bad A suitable test course was determined to regard typical driving situations as well as the European driving behavior. Vehicles of different segments were tested on that course. The recorded driving style and the simultaneously given comments on the diesel combustion noise results to a typical driving mode linked to acoustics sensation of diesel combustion noise. The next step was to simulate this driving mode on the chassis dynamometer for acoustical measurements. The recordings of several vehicles were evaluated in listening test to identify a metric. The base of metric was objective analyses evaluating diesel combustion noise in relevant driving situations.

In order to reduce total drag during aerodynamic optimization process of the passenger vehicle, induced drag should be minimized and pressure drag should be decreased by means of applying streamlined body shape. The reduction of wake area could decrease pressure drag, which was generated by boundary layer separation. The induced drag caused by rear axle lift and C-pillar vortex can be reduced by the employing of trunk lid edge and kick-up or an optimized rear spoiler. When a rear spoiler or kick-up shape was installed on the rear end of a sedan vehicle, drag was reduced but the wake area became larger. This contradiction cannot be explained by simply using Bernoulli’s principle with equal transit or longer path theory. Newtonian explanation with COANDA effect is adopted to explain this phenomenon. The relationships among COANDA effect, down wash, C-pillar vortex, rear axle lift and induced drag are explained.

In this paper, an optimization technique for thin walled beams of vehicle body structure is proposed. Stiffness of thin walled beam structure is characterized by the thickness and typical section shape of the beam structure. Approximate functions for the section properties such as area, area moment of inertia, and torsional constant are derived by using the response surface method. The approximate functions can be used for the optimal design of the vehicle body that consists of complicated thin walled beams. A passenger car body structure is optimized to demonstrate the proposed technique.

A systematic process of optimization is suggested to obtain the best control maps for a parallel type hybrid electric vehicle. Taking the fuel consumption as the cost function and driving cycle as part of the constraints, an optimization problem for CVT pulley ratio control and motor torque control can be formulated. The change of the battery charge state between the start and end point of the given driving cycle also works as a constraint. In order to see the effect of various control strategies on system behavior and overall fuel consumption, a simulation model was built to accommodate the functional blocks representing hybrid powertrain subsystem components and corresponding control units.

The topology optimization made a great success in pure structural design in an actual industrial field. However, a lot of factors interact each other in a actual engineering field in highly complicated manner. The typical conceptual trade-off is that cost and performance, that is, since they are competing factors, one can't improve the specific system without consideration of interaction. The vehicle has lots of competing factors, especially like fuel economy and acceleration performance, mass and stiffness, roominess and cost, short front overhang and crash-worthiness and so on. In addition, they interact each other in a more complicated manner, that is, fuel economy has something to do with not only engine performance but also mass, roominess, stiffness, the length of overhang, trunk volume, etc. So, most of decision-makings have been made by management based on subjective knowledge and experience.

The ride and noise characteristics of a vehicle is significantly affected by vibration transferred to the body through the chassis mounting points from the engine and suspension. It is known that body attachment stiffness is an important factor of idle noise and road noise for NVH performance improvement. And high stiffness helps to improve the flexibility of bushing rate tuning. This paper presents the procedure of body attachment stiffness analysis, which contains the correlation between experimental test and FEA. It is concluded that the most important factors are panel thickness, section type and mounting area size. This procedure makes it possible to find out the weak points before proto car and to suggest proper design guideline in order to improve the stiffness of body structure.