Search Results

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.

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.

When unifying the functions of widely used two-fan, engine cooling system into a single fan unit, the noise and power issues must be addressed. The noise problem due to the increased fan radius is a serious matter especially as the cabin noise becomes quieter for sedans. Of the fan noise components, discrete noise at BPF's (Blade Passing Frequency) seriously degrades cabin sound quality. Unevenly spaced fan is developed to reduce the tones. The fan blades are spaced such that the center of mass is placed exactly on the fan axis to minimize fan vibration. The resulting fan noise is 11 dBA quieter in discrete noise level than the even bladed fan system.

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.

Luxury sound is one of the most important sound qualities in a premium passenger car. Previous work has shown that, because of the effects of many different interior sounds, it is difficult to evaluate the luxury sound objectively by using only the A-weighted sound pressure level. In this paper, the characteristics of such sound were first investigated by a systematic approach and a new objective evaluation method for luxury sound-the luxury sound quality index--which was developed by the systematic combination of the seven major interior sound quality indexes based on path analysis. The seven major sounds inside a passenger car were selected by a basic investigation evaluated by the members of a luxury automotive club. Seven major interior sound quality indexes were developed by using sound metrics, which are the psychoacoustic parameters, and the multiple regression method used for the modeling of the correlation between objective and subjective evaluation.

This paper presents two closed-loop control methods for monitoring and improving the combustion behavior and the combustion noise on two 4-cylinder diesel engines, in which an in-cylinder pressure and an accelerometer transducer are used to monitor and control them. Combustion processes are developed to satisfy the stricter and stricter regulations on emissions and fuel consumption. These combustion processes are influenced by the factors such as engine durability, driving conditions, environmental influences and fuel properties. Combustion noise could be increased by these factors and is detrimental to interior sound quality. Therefore, it is necessary to develop robust combustion behaviors and combustion noise. For this situation, we have developed two closed-loop control methods. Firstly, a method using in-cylinder pressure data was developed for monitoring and improving the combustion noise of a 1.7L engine. A new index using the values calculated from the data was proposed.

This paper presents a novel method predicting the variation of sound quality of interior noise depending on the change of the proprieties of absorption materials. At the first, the model predicting the interior noise corresponding to the change of the absorption material in engine room is proposed. Secondly the index to estimate the sound quality of the predicted sound is developed. Thirdly the experimental work has been conducted with seven different materials and validated the newly developed index. Finally, this index is applied for the optimization of absorption material to improve the sound quality of interior noise in a passenger car.

In this paper, a reconfigurable object-oriented simulator is proposed to analyze the performance of Bluetooth Voice Communication Package (VCP) for telecom purposes like hands-free vehicular communication. It consists of a graphical user interface (GUI) for research or validation engineers to investigate system specific performance. For example, a research engineer can utilize this GUI to analyze a system performance using different noise reduction filtering techniques in vehicular hands-free applications. Also, a validation engineer can utilize this GUI to evaluate vehicular Bluetooth audio quality for different vehicles at different driving conditions (e.g. speeds, fan levels, etc.). The proposed Bluetooth VCP model consists of modules like Audio Equalization (EQ), Acoustic Echo Canceller (AEC), and Noise Suppression (NS). This dynamic GUI platform provides the scope to add and analyze new proposed filtering techniques.

The sound sources of modern road vehicle can be classified into three components, driving sound (sound generated through normal driving patterns and events), operating sound (sound generated through actuated components not related to driving), and generated synthetic sound (electronic warning / interactive feedback). The characteristic features of these sounds are dependent upon customer expectation and usage requirements. Additional development complexities are introduced due to each market's cultural and regional differences. These differences in preference must be considered for the establishment of the target sound quality in the early vehicle development process. In this paper, a sound quality goal setting procedure based on user preference is introduced. The sound targets are created as a result of the user preference investigation and validated by intercultural comparison.

Automotive companies are trying to enhance the customer’s impression by improving engine sound quality. The target of this sound quality is to create a brand sound that is preferred by their customers as well as quietness of interior noise. Over the past decade there have been many studies in the field of automotive sound quality. These have included the technologies such as tuning of intake orifice and exhaust orifice, tuning of structure-borne, intake feedback devices, active exhaust valves, ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) and ASD (Active Sound Design). The three elements of the sound that affect the feeling of the customer are known as engine order arrangement, frequency balance, and linearity. Here, the most important thing in sound quality development is the order arrangement.

This paper presents a systematic approach to interior engine sound design for enhancing sound character of car interior sound effectively. Nowadays an active noise control technology is widely used in vehicle industry. Particularly, an active sound design (ASD) technique using vehicle’s audio system for controlling interior sound due to powertrain has become a general method to improve sound quality or character. The ASD system using speakers has the advantage of creating various sounds relatively easy. In this study, the novel systematic approach is proposed to guide the efficient design of powerful and pleasant acceleration sound by order spectrum analysis. At first, primary attributes of powerful and pleasant sound were analyzed and sound concept was derived. Secondly, the optimal linearity and the level envelope of firing order were derived by subjective evaluation.

Current developments in the automotive industry such as electrification and consistent lightweight construction increasingly enable the application of active control systems for the further reduction of noise in vehicles. As different stochastic noise sources such as rolling and wind noise as well as noise radiated by the ventilation system are becoming more noticeable and as passive measures for NVH optimization tend to be heavy and construction-space intensive, current research activities focus on active reduction of noise caused by the latter mentioned sources. This paper illustrates the development, implementation and experimental investigation of an active noise control system integrated into the ventilation duct system of a passenger car.