Characterize the Sound Field Generated from a Vehicle Horn by Pellicular Analysis

To predict the sound field produced by a vehicle horn requires a good source representation of it in the full vehicle model. This paper investigates the characterization of a physical vehicle horn by an inverse method called pellicular analysis. To implement this method, firstly an acoustic testing is performed to measure the sound pressure radiated from the horn at a certain number of microphone locations in a free field environment. Based on the geometry of a virtual horn, the locations of each microphone and measured sound pressure data, pellicular analysis is adopted to recover a set of vibration pattern of the virtual horn. The virtual horn and the recovered vibration information are then incorporated in a full vehicle numerical model to simulate its exterior sound field. The validity of this approach is confirmed by comparing the prediction for a horn in a production vehicle to the corresponding physical test which is required to meet the Brazilian regulation CONTRAN 764/2018.