Unit 5: Noise Testing

1. Mechanism of Noise generation:

2. Sources of noise and vibration:
a. Vibration:
● Basic Concept:
i. Machinery, equipment and power-driven tools, which are encountered
in all sectors of modern industry, generate intense vibration that may be
transmitted to the workers who operate them. Vibration may affect
comfort, reduce work output, and cause disorders of physiological
functions in man, giving rise to the development of disease in the event
of intense exposure.
ii. Vibration is a physical factor which acts on man by transmission of
mechanical energy from sources of oscillation.
iii. Vibration sources are characterized by their time and frequency domain
characteristics
iv. Categorized principally as
– Periodic –
• originate from the power unit, ancillaries or transmission • simplest form
of periodic disturbance is harmonic
• In the time domain this is represented by a sinusoid and in the frequency
domain by a single line spectrum
– Random disturbances
• from terrain inputs to wheels
• only statistical representations are possible
• commonly represented by its power spectrum
i. All mass-elastic systems have natural frequencies
– For linear system these frequencies are constant
• related only to the mass and stiffness distribution
– Non-linear effects require special treatment
ii. A few of the lower order frequencies are of interest because the
higher ones are more highly damped.
iii. For one frequency, a system vibrates in a particular way, depicted
by the relative amplitude and phase at various locations - mode of
vibration
● Reason for vibration
i. Lightly damped structures can produce high levels of vibration from
low level sources if frequency components in the disturbance are
close to one of the system’s natural frequencies.
ii. This means that well designed and manufactured subsystems, which
produce low level disturbing forces, can still create problems when
assembled on a vehicle.
 iii. In order to avoid these problems, at the design stage it is necessary
to model the system accurately and analyze its response to
anticipated disturbances
● Sources of vibration are:
i. Knocks and frictions of machine mechanisms;

ii. Inaccurately centred or loudly balanced rotating masses; and

iii. Pressure pulses of compressed air.

iv. Even a single machine or tool can include various sources of vibration with different
spectral compositions, and different amplitudes, for the various frequencies,
changing randomly with time.

● Vibration may be sub-divided into the following two categories:

i. Whole-body vibration (acts on the body of sitting or standing persons); and

ii. (b) Local vibration (mainly transmitted to the hands and arms).
iii. Sources of Vibration:
Sources of whole-body vibration are encountered in the manufacturing and
construction industries, agriculture, and transport (e.g. lorries, weaving looms,
machines for making pre-fabricated concrete elements, tractors, harvesters,
threshers, and self-propelled or tractor-towed agricultural or construction
equipment).
iv. Whole-body vibration may be subdivided, according to its source, into the
following three categories:
(a) Transport vibration (due to locomotion);

(b) Mixed technical and transport vibration (produced by machines operating both
in a fixed position and when moving along an especially prepared path); and

(c) Technical vibration (generated by stationary machines, or transmitted to

workplaces without sources of vibration).

v. Sources of vibration transmitted to workers hands are mainly power-driven tools.

b. Noise:

1. Vehicles are mobile bodies that carry and move people and/or goods.
2. Vehicles can be space vehicles, airplanes, submarines, trains, on- or off-road vehicles,
and others. This work is dedicated to road vehicles—automobiles. When a vehicle’s
engine is in operation, the vehicle or a part of it exhibits oscillatory motion, which is
termed vibration.
3. The adjacent air also exhibits vibration, which is called sound.
 4. Vehicle sound includes wanted and unwanted sounds. Unwanted sound is noise.
5. Vibration and noise can cause passenger discomfort and can be detrimental to the
customer’s perception of vehicle quality.
6. Wanted sound is typically engine related and can be a good contributor to the
customer’s quality perception, or sound quality.

b. Sources of noise:
3. Design features:
a. Vibration: Provide the basis of all vibration studies at the design stage.
• Represent the dynamics of a system by one or more differential equations.
• Distributed-parameter approach - distributed mass and elasticity of some very simple
components such as uniform shafts and plates by partial differential equations. – not
generally possible to represent typical engineering systems (which tend to be more
complicated) in this way.
• Lumped-parameter approach - a set of discrete mass, elastic and damping elements,
resulting in one or more ordinary differential equations.
– Masses are concentrated at discrete points and are connected together by mass less
elastic and damping elements.
– The number of elements used dictates the accuracy of the model
– To have just sufficient elements for natural vibration modes and frequencies while
avoiding unnecessary computing effort.
3. Transmission noise:
● Powertrain noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) testing concerns the overall driver
experience of the vehicle propulsion system, and this includes everything that makes
the vehicle move.
● The noise level and sound quality are both very important since some parts of the
sound provide important feedback to the driver while other parts are just annoying.
The noise from all these sources, i.e.the internal combustion engine (ICE) with air
induction, exhaust system, tail pipe, gearbox,belt drive system, pumps and accessories
like cooling systems and fuel pump, is transmitted both airborne and structure-borne
into the vehicle and contributes to the vehicle acoustic comfort.
● The powertrain noise also affects the external noise (the pass-by noise), which is
regulated by legislation
● Vehicle interior measurements form the basis for the verification of the vehicle NVH
performance.
● The measurement procedures are developed to provide results that correlate with
subjective ratings that are used as customer satisfaction references.
● Development measurements in the engine bay will provide detailed information about
noise source location, source strength, frequency content, engine order content and
 time variation, and this will explain the physical cause of the noise. The results of all
these tests will guide the engineers how to reduce unwanted noise.
● Engine bay measurements in combination with interior or exterior measurements will
provide information about the performance of how well acoustic packages work.
● These packages provide sound insulation or sound absorption. The measurements are
done both on the OEM’s development test vehicles and on the production follow-up
vehicles as well as for benchmarking to make sure that the customer’s expectations
for a new vehicle can be fulfilled.
● When testing transmission noise, the verification of the gearbox design is tested in a
NVH drivetrain test rig where noise emissions and vibrations at the interfaces to the
engine can be investigated.
● Misalignment of shafts, single tooth incorrectly cut or damaged.

• Correct standard tooth profiles

– to account for tooth elasticity effects
– But gear teeth are subjected to variable loading, – it is impossible to correct for all
eventualities .
Test types within transmission test:
Computer model validation: Measurements from existing cars or systems are used to
correlate the simulations. Mule vehicles (existing cars modified with new concepts) are also
used.
Powertrain test: wide variety of standardized measurement microphones that can be used in
the many different stages of powertrain testing.
Sound intensity and sound source location
4. Exhaust noise:
● Produced by release of gases as exhaust valves open and close
● The exhaust noise from vehicles with internal combustion engines is very important.
It must support a good engine sound quality while not being disturbing or violating
noise legislation.
 ● The intake system and exhaust system are highly responsible for the engine noise
character and sound pressure level (SPL) and must be tuned to meet the required
performance.
● The engine sound quality should provide driver information about engine rpm as well
as a suitable sound for the vehicle type, e.g. powerful and sporty during acceleration,
but silent during constant speed driving. This also applies to the exterior sound where
the sound character should match the vehicle brand identity.
• F = engine speed /60 * number of cyls / 2
• Vary with engine load (upto 15 dB)
• Turbo charging reduces engine and exhaust noise (because of better combustion)
Attenuation of exhaust noise
• Devices which minimize flow of sound waves – Allow gas flow
– Called acoustic filters
• Two types
– Dissipative (absorb acoustic energy) – Reactive (by intereference) exhaust noise
• Dissipative silencers
– absorptive material which absorbs acoustic energy from the gas flow
– Produces attenuation at f>500Hz
• Reactive silencers
– when the sound in a pipe or duct encounters a discontinuity in the cross-section,
– some of the acoustic energy is reflected back
– creating destructive interference
– Suitable for attenuating low
frequency noise
– Causes pressure loss
The following are some of the devices used to overcome specific silencer tuning problems.
– The Helmholtz resonator – a through-flow resonator which amplifies sound at its resonant
frequency, but attenuates it outside this range.
– Circumferential pipe perforations – create many small sound sources resulting in a
broadband filtering effect due to increased local turbulence.
– Venturi nozzles – designed to have flow velocities below the speed of sound, they are used
to attenuate low frequency sound.
Test types with exhaust noise testing:
● Sound transmission loss (measurements on dynamometer and test rig): This testing is
done at the component supplier or the OEM. The result is used for verification of
requirements and benchmarking, computer-aided engineering (CAE) correlation and
during development. The radiated noise from the exhaust system parts and the tailpipe
noise is measured on a full vehicle in a hemi- anechoic test cell with noise, vibration
and harshness (NVH) chassis dynamometer. The microphones are placed in the near
field of the muffler or other parts to be investigated.
● Pass by noise: critical final testing to verify that the legislation requirements can be
met and, if not, to find the main source of the problem. This is done on a dedicated
test track as per global standards. Additional muffling for the exhaust system can be
used to understand, if the tailpipe noise is the problem. Indoor pass-by noise is used
for development and requires a very large hemi-anechoic chamber and a microphone
array on each side of the vehicle to simulate the actual pass-by.
5. Engine noise:
● Engine noise originates from both the combustion process and mechanical forces
associated with engine dynamics
● A lot of noise originates from the engine itself of course, the gear box, the belt drive
system, pumps, cooling fans, but also other components like the A/C compressor and
the power steering motors.
● These systems contribute to the vehicle's acoustic comfort and some parts of the noise
provides important feedback to the driver while other parts are just annoying.
● The noise from the engine bay can also affect the external noise (the pass-by noise),
which is regulated by law.
● Vehicle interior measurements form the basis for verifying the vehicle performance,
and the measurement procedures are developed to provide analysis results that
correlate with the subjective impressions. e.g. source location, source strength,
frequency content, engine order content and time variation, and will explain the
physical cause of the noise. This result will guide the engineers as to how to reduce
unwanted noise.
● Measurements in the engine bay will provide detailed information about the noise to
identify with both interior and exterior measurements. The result will guide the
engineers as to how to reduce the unwanted noise
• Noise control:
– Controlling pressure variations
– Piston slap – mass of piston, gudgeon pin design, offset
– Noise shields
– Crankshaft – spoked, damper
Test types with engine noise testing
● Measurements in the engine bay area include:
·a. Near-field measurements close to the different sources: best done at standard positions
distributed in engine bay and close to noise sources. A single position selected from any
microphone can be a good indicator of problematic noise. The result will be used for
verification of different engine calibrations.
b· Far-field measurements for sound power estimations: performed in a hemi-anechoic
chamber equipped with a low-noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) chassis dynamometer.
Requires few microphones and precision requires at least 20 microphones. Microphones are
placed in hemispheres to the engine and the sound power versus frequency is calculated.
c· Sound intensity measurements: Used for noise source location. Mostly done in a NVH
hemi-anechoic test chamber in combination with other NVH vehicle testing. Can be
performed at other locations as well since the intensity technique is quite tolerant to the
acoustic environment. This type of testing is mostly suitable for engine operating conditions
at idle or at fixed engine rpm and gear in neutral. The result is a ranking of the different
sources at different frequencies.
d· Microphone arrays for sound source location: used for noise source location in a hemi-
anechoic chamber equipped with NVH chassis dynamometer. The array can be installed
above the engine bay and allows for safe testing at driving conditions without any person
outside the vehicle. Different techniques for analysis such as beamforming and acoustic
holography are available and the result can be visualized in real-time.
e· Acoustic transfer function (ATF) measurements: The ATF testing is used to capture an
average insertion loss, and the result will be used for:
· Verification of vehicle requirements
· Comparison to benchmarks
· To estimate noise levels in the vehicle interior from
the sound power of the source
· Computer-aided engineering (CAE) correlation
Sound source is moved between several locations and the response is also measured at
several positions in the engine bay.
It is common to have up to 12 source locations and 36 response positions, so the final number
of measurements can be several hundreds.
The number of responses to measure
is chosen as needed depending on test time and accuracy.
6..a. Wind noise testing:
● Wind noise is an aerodynamic noise related to the body design and turbulence from
various components of the vehicle.
● Within automotive aeroacoustics, there are three main categories to study which affect
the aerodynamic noise on a road vehicle: Vehicle form, open cavities and the body
sealing - the latter being the ability to reduce wind noise and often related to the price
range of the vehicle.
● Important components related to the vehicle form and design which have a direct
influence on wind noise testing results include A-pillars,side mirrors, windscreen
wipers, antenna, underbody and glazing.
● Normally, wind noise is most disturbing at speeds above 100 km/h (approx. 60
miles/h), but is becoming increasingly important when the powertrain is reduced –
especially on electrical vehicles (EVs).
● Careful design minimizes the problem, so early concept studies are important. Wind
noise is, however, often an issue discovered late in the development process. It
requires fast and efficient analysis since measures such as extended seal systems or
sound packages are expensive. Test types
within wind noise testing:
● Aerodynamic noise: Wind noise being an aerodynamic noise is actually related to
both the body design as well as the turbulence from various components. In relation to
the body design, there are three main categories, which affect the aerodynamic noise
on a road vehicle: Vehicle form, open cavities and the body sealing. The vehicle form
 and open cavities are active noise sources, while the body sealing reduces wind noise
- depending on the sealing quality.
● Wind noise performance also depends on minimizing aeroacoustic noise sources
generated by vehicle components since these all have a direct impact on the
measurement of wind noise in the car. Wind noise is, however, often an issue, which
is discovered late in the development process. It requires fast and efficient analysis
since measures like extended seal systems or sound packages are expensive.
● Aerodynamic noise is caused through a variety of mechanisms:
● Aerodynamic excitation of the so-called ‘greenhouse surfaces’ on the car (the glass-
work and the roof panel) causing structure-radiated noise in the interior.
● Airflow over the underside of the vehicle causing transmission of airborne sound to
the interior, particularly in the wheel-arch areas.
● Noise transmission through door and glass seals due to aspiration (leakage) or due to
aerodynamic excitation of doors and glass caused by disturbed airflow over the seals.
● Vortex shedding over protrusions in the bodywork (such as aerials, roof bars, etc.)
causing tonal airborne noise.
● Cavity flows through partially open windows and sunroofs causing intense low-
frequency (below 25 Hz commonly) noise and buffeting.
b. Wind noise measurement: A device for measuring wind noise comprises at least a first
microphone and a processor. A first signal and a second signal are obtained from the at least
one microphone, the first and second signals reflecting a common acoustic input, and the first
and second signals being at least one of temporally distinct and spatially distinct. The first
signal is processed to determine a first distribution of the samples of the first signal. The
second signal is processed to determine a second distribution of the samples of the second
signal. From a difference between the first distribution and the second distribution a scalar
non-binary metric reflecting an intensity of wind noise present in the first and second signals
is derived, and output.

7.. Target vehicles and objective targets:

Target-setting procedure:
● Target values are generally established early in the design process. This is done
to ensure that all components influencing these targets can be designed to meet
these.
● The target values for sound quality can be obtained from competing vehicles and from
preceding models .
● A balance between technical boundaries, weight of the car, power, fuel
efficiency, recycling materials and production costs should prevail in the setting
of target values for new vehicles. This is of importance to ensure that
improvements are worthwhile for the complete vehicle.
 ● Cascading of targets is a necessary feature as it is very difficult to reach a certain
interior sound quality target without setting targets for all components
influencing the interior sound quality.
● The first step in target setting, for interior sound quality, is to identify
problem noises and distribution sources and name them.
● Next, the SQ metrics are determined for each distribution element by means of
SQ analysis.
● Lastly, a connection between the dominant metric and the construction of
hardware is found, in order to optimise design for customer satisfaction.

● Different target setting methods and models are utilised. Some of the ones are
used in the vehicle manufacturing industry.
● The cascading model shows a typical flow-chart of how target values for a complete
system are set, by setting targets for all sub-systems influencing this overall target.

Objective targets:
Objective vehicle dynamics testing has a key role in the development and assessment of a
new vehicle. Testing activity is performed:
● Benchmarking and target setting
● Development
● Verification and validation
Objective testing is used more and more to correlate simulation model to the physical objects,
which is a key factor to improve the accuracy of virtual prototyping.
From each test type, vehicle dynamics engineers get a number of performance metrics, which
allow making an objective picture of the vehicle’s behavior under different testing conditions
Another key factor for test efficiency and reliability is the implementation of a test
automation and validation system, which is in the object of this application note.

8. Causes and remedies of road shock

Causes: Many reasons can cause shock absorber leaking, including dirt, mud, old shocks,
broken/worn-out seal, rough terrain, and accidents.
This problem will make tires imbalanced, creating a feeling of floating while driving.
● Rough Terrain
One of the most common reasons for the problem is the rough terrain. Although shock
absorbers are designed to help drivers feel more comfortable on such terrain, they can affect
this component’s lifespan.
Pothole-infested roads shorten a shock’s lifespan. The piston’s constant strong action against
the hydraulic fluid may increase the chances of leakage.
Worse, the bolts that keep the shocks in place are dislodged, causing the wheels to spin out of
the socket. Furthermore, shocks may wear out faster or slower depending on driving
behaviors.
● Broken/Worn-Out Seal
The suspension system’s wear and tear could cause the seal to become brittle and worn.
Fortunately, damaged or worn-out seals can be changed, which is less expensive than the
replacement of a shock absorber.
It is recommended that you have your shocks tested every 6 months. This is to be forewarned
in comfortable settings to avoid surprises.
A shock’s parts are easier to replace than the entire component.
● Accidents
Any collision with the suspension can harm the shock absorbers; a dented or bent shock
always requires replacement.
After an accident, the repair shop will inspect your shocks to see if they need to be replaced.
It's important to understand that “accident” includes anything that jars the suspension
particularly hard, such as hitting curbs, deep potholes, large rocks, or even a rock being
kicked up against the shock when you drive on the road.
● Dirt And Mud
Another must-noticed reason is dirt and mud on the road. Those particles entering the vehicle
suspension system components can damage the seals, causing leakage.
● Old Shocks
During use, the shocks fought wear out. Modern struts and shock absorbers are meant to
endure several years and 50,000 miles.
Beyond this time, the shocks’ parts will wear out faster and lead to leaks.
These intervals are not fixed, depending on how you use them. Thus, you should let the
mechanic check it regularly
Rear shock leaks:
● Uneven Tires
Your shock absorbers aid in keeping your tires securely in contact on the road.
When they aren’t working properly, your tires will wear unevenly. It will be more noticeable
if uneven wear has developed bald areas on your tires.
● Vibrations
If you are driving and experiencing unpleasant vibrations, your shocks are probably in
trouble. You might feel vibrations through the steering wheel.
They’re frequently caused by fluid leaking past the piston seal, causing the shocks to
overreact to suspension movements.
● Knocking Sound
Each end of a shock absorber has a bushing. They’re constructed of rubber and may easily
break, destabilizing the shock absorber and preventing it from functioning properly.
When you have a broken bushing, your automobile will usually knock or tap when you go
over a speed bump or a pothole.
● Bumpy Riding Experience
When a shock absorber is working properly, you rarely notice. They always attempt to lessen
the impact of all bumps and potholes you encounter and the vibrations they cause.
Remedies:
10. Vehicle structure noise: