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Absorptive and isolating encapsulations or enclosures are commonly encountered around different noise-emitting components within the car industry. Not least for electric drive units, whose air borne noise shares often are dominant in the 2-6 kHz region, encapsulations can provide a cost and weight efficient noise abatement solution. The main constrains related to the acoustic performance when designing an encapsulation for electric drive units are surface coverage due to geometrical complexities, allowable package space (setting limits for maximum thickness of the encapsulation), weight and finally cost. The numerical simulation techniques for quantifying the acoustic performance in terms of insertion loss are challenging, since the encapsulations are partly compressed and far from homogeneous for example.

Axial cooling fans are commonly used in electric vehicles to cool batteries with high heating load. One drawback of the cooling fans is the high aeroacoustic noise level resulting from the fan blades and the obstacles facing the airflow. To create a comfortable cabin environment in the vehicle, and to reduce exterior noise emission, a low-noise installation design of the axial fan is required. The purpose of the study is to investigate efficient computational aeroacoustics (CAA) simulation processes to assist the cooling-fan installation design. In this paper we report the current progress of the investigation, where the narrow-band components of the fan noise is focused on. Two methods are used to compute the noise source. In the first method the source is computed from the flow field obtained using the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (unsteady RANS, or URANS) model.

During the vehicle development process in the premium and luxury automotive segments an important task is the refinement of noise, vibration and harshness. Along with other attributes such as styling, drivability and vehicle dynamics it strongly influences the overall perception of the vehicle. At the same time the automotive manufacturers need to release more products faster to the market using shorter vehicle development time with reduced cost. Altogether this has increased the use of virtual models and decreased the number of test vehicles in the programs. When assembling vehicles in production there will be a natural variation, which will result in a spread in the attribute performances. When shifting towards virtual models and reduced numbers of physical test vehicles there is a higher risk that the variations in production will be neglected, leading to more customer complaints.

The generation mechanism and possible counter measures for fluid driven whistles in low Mach number flow duct networks are discussed. The vortex sound model, where unstable shear layers interact with the acoustic field and act as amplifiers under certain boundary conditions, is shown to capture the physics well. Further, for the system to actually whistle an acoustic feedback to the amplifying shear layer is also needed. The demonstration example in this study is a generalized resonator configuration with annular volumes attached to a straight flow duct via a number of small holes, perforations, around the duct’s circumference. At each hole a shear layer is formed and the acoustic reflections from the resonator volumes and the up and downstream sides provides a possible feedback to them. Not only the Helmholtz mode but also ring modes in the annular volumes provide a feedback to sustain whistles.

Noise generated by low Mach number flow in duct networks is important in many industrial applications. In the automotive industry the two most important are the ventilation duct network and the engine exhaust system. Traditionally, design is made based on rule-of thumb or slightly better by simple semi-empirical scaling laws for flow noise. In many cases, strong curvatures and local deviations from circular cross-sections are created due to outer geometry restrictions. This can result in local relatively high flow velocities and complex flow separation patterns and as a result, rule-of thumb and scaling law methods can become highly inaccurate and uncertain. More advanced techniques based on time domain modelling of the fluid dynamics equations together with acoustic analogies can offer a better understanding of the local noise generation, the propagation and interaction with the rest of the system.

The challenging problem of noise generation and propagation in automotive turbocharging systems is of real interest from both scientific and practical points of view. Robust and fast steady-state fluid flow calculations, complemented by acoustic analogies can represent valuable tools to be used for a quick assessment of the problem during e.g. design phase, and a starting point for more in-depth future unsteady calculations. Thus, as a part of the initial phase of a long-term project, a steady-state Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) flow analysis is carried out for a specific automotive turbocharger compressor geometry. Acoustic data are extracted by means of aeroacoustics models available within the framework of the STAR-CCM+ solver (i.e. Curle and Proudman acoustic analogies, respectively).

Increased demands for reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are driven by the global warming. To meet these challenges with respect to the passenger car segment the strategy of utilizing IC-engine downsizing has shown to be effective. In order to additionally meet requirements for high power and torque output supercharging is required. This can be realized using e.g. turbo-chargers, roots blowers or a combination of several such devices for the highest specific power segment. Both turbo-chargers and roots blowers can be strong sources of sound depending on the operating conditions and extensive NVH abatements such as resonators and encapsulation might be required to achieve superior vehicle NVH. For an efficient resonator tuning process in-duct acoustic source data is required. No published studies exists that describe how the gas exchange process for roots blowers can be described by acoustic sources in the frequency domain.

The Constant Volume Sampler (CVS) is often used to dilute automotive exhaust with ambient air for measurement of emissions from light duty vehicles. A CVS is traditionally equipped with Critical Flow Venturi (CFV) to control and measure total flow. If the CVS is equipped with a Smooth Approach Orifice (SAO) to measure dilution air flow, the exhaust flow of the vehicle can be calculated as the difference between dilution and total flow. Calibration of the CVS and SAO is routinely done using ambient air, but carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor in diluted exhaust have an influence on the flow through the CFV. In current US emission legislation the provisions to include water vapor is added. However, if this is done then the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) in exhaust has not been considered. Further on, when using the CVS to measure exhaust flow, only the CFV will be affected by the diluted exhaust gas composition.

This work explores how fluid driven whistles in complex automotive intake and exhaust systems can be predicted using computationally affordable tools. Whistles associated with unsteady shear layers (created over for example side branches or perforates in resonators) are studied using vortex sound theory; vorticity in the shear layer interacts with the acoustic field while being convected across the orifice. If the travel time of a hydrodynamic disturbance over the orifice reasonably matches a multiple of the acoustic period of an acoustic feedback system, energy is transferred from the flow field to the acoustic field resulting in a whistle. The actual amplitude of the whistle is set by non-linear saturation phenomena and cannot be predicted here, but the frequency and relative strength can be found. For this not only the mean flow and acoustic fields needs to be characterized separately, but also the interaction of the two.

The concept of IC engine downsizing is a well-adapted industry standard, enabling better fuel conversion efficiency and the reduction of tailpipe emissions. This is achieved by utilizing different type of superchargers. As a consequence, the additional charger noise emission, at the IC engine inlet, can become a problem. In order to address such problem, the authors of this work have recently proposed a novel dissipative silencer for effective and robust noise control of the compressor. Essentially, it realizes an optimal flow channel impedance, referred to as the Cremer impedance. This is achieved by means of a straight flow channel with a locally reacting wall consisting of air cavities covered by an acoustic resistance, e.g., a micro-perforated panel (MPP). In this paper, an improved optimization method of this silencer is presented. The classical Cremer impedance model is modified to account for mean flow dependence of the optimal wave number.

The automotive industry strives to develop high quality vehicles in a short period of time that satisfy the consumer needs and stand out in the competition. Full exploitation of simulation and Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) tools can enable quick evaluation of different vehicle concepts and setups without the need of building physical prototypes. Addressing the aforementioned statements this paper presents a method for optimising the Electric Power-Assisted Steering (EPAS) ECU parameters employing solely CAE. The objective of the optimisation is to achieve a desired steering response. The developed process is tested on three specific steering metrics (friction feel, torque build-up and torque deadband) for two function parameters (basic steering torque and active return) of the EPAS. The optimisation method enabled all metrics to fall successfully within the target range.

The increased focus and demands on the reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 requires the automotive industry to develop and introduce new and more energy efficient powertrain concepts. The extensive utilisation of downsizing concepts, such as boosting, leads to significant challenges in noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) integration. This is in conflict with the market expectation on the vehicle's acoustic refinement, which plays an increasingly important role in terms of product perception, especially in the premium or luxury segment. The introduction of the twin charger boosting system, i.e. combining super and turbo charging devices, enables downsizing/speeding in order to achieve improved fuel economy as well as short time-to-torque, while maintaining high driving dynamics. This concept requires also extensive consideration to NVH integration. The NVH challenges when integrating a roots type supercharger are very extensive.