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The air noise generated by automotive climate control systems is today emerging as one of the main noise sources in a vehicle interior. In the confined instrument panel (I.P.) ducts, that lead the air flow from the HVAC outlets to the cabin, the highly constrained geometry generally leads to flow separation and to complex flow structures that contribute to the noise perceived in the car. Numerical simulation offers a good way to analyze these mechanisms and to identify the aerodynamic noise sources, in an industrial context driven by permanent reduction of programs timing and development costs, implying no physical prototype of ducts before serial tooling. This paper presents an example of aero-acoustic study of simple I.P. ducts performed with the finite element code ACTRAN to estimate the sound produced by the turbulent flow. For this type of configuration, the acoustic propagation is decoupled from the noise generation mechanism that is essentially of aerodynamic nature.

The design of automotive mechanical components requires the consideration of various excitations related to physical tests (involved in the validation process) and/or operational conditions. In such a context, random distributed excitations (like diffuse field and turbulent boundary layer) play a particular role. Modeling and simulation of the vibro-acoustic response of systems subjected to such random excitations is the framework of the present contribution. Based on elasto-acoustic assumptions, on one hand, and the assimilation of the excitation to a weakly stationary random process characterized by a reference power spectrum and a particular spatial correlation function, on the other hand, the authors identify various strategies for evaluating the random response. The analysis is performed in a numerical context. The selected discrete models are based on a finite element formulation and exploit a displacement-pressure formulation.

Nowadays, the interior vehicle noise due to the exterior aerodynamic field is an emerging topic in the acoustic design of a car. In particular, the turbulent aerodynamic pressure generated by the air flow encountering the windshield and the side windows represents an important interior noise source. As a consequence PSA Peugeot Citroën is interested in the numerical prediction of this aerodynamic noise generated by the car windows with the final objective of improving the products design and reducing this noise. In the past, several joint studies have been led by PSA and Free Field Technologies on this topic. In those studies an efficient methodology to predict the noise transmission through the side window has been set up. It relies on a two steps approach: the first step involves the computation of the exterior turbulent field using an unsteady CFD solver (in this case EXA PowerFlow).

At high cruising speed, the car A-pillars generate turbulent air flow around the vehicle. The resulting aerodynamic pressure applied on the windows significantly contributes to the total cabin noise. In order to predict this particular noise contribution, the physic of both the flow and the cabin needs to be accurately modeled. This paper presents an efficient methodology to predict the turbulent noise transmission through the car windows. The method relies on a two-step approach: the first step is the computation of the exterior aero-dynamic field using an unsteady CFD solver (PowerFLOW); the second step consists in the computation of the acoustic propagation inside the cabin using a finite element vibro-acoustic solver (ACTRAN). The simplified car cabin of Hyundai Motor Company, studied in this paper, involves aluminum skin, windows, sealant, inner air cavity and acoustic treatment inside the passenger compartment (porous material, damping layer).