An Efficient Approach to Improving Vehicle Acceleration Sound Quality using an NVH Simulator

In a traditional NVH development process, the realization of the targeted vehicle acceleration sound quality can be a highly laborious and costly process involving the creation and evaluation of multiple iterations of prototype parts. Consequently, development engineers are limited by long prototype part fabrication times while key product decision makers have to often accept the “in-process” sound quality due to aggressive program timing milestones and escalating program costs. The NVH simulator provides an alternative approach that is potentially more efficient in terms of reducing program timing, reducing development and prototype costs and improving the end-product sound quality.

This paper presents the case of a V6 vehicle under development whose acceleration sound quality needed improvement. The NVH simulator was used to determine the key contributors that lead to the sound quality of the targeted vehicle. Using the NVH Simulator, realistic countermeasures were then applied to the development vehicle and the resulting sound quality was demonstrated and evaluated. In this case, the development vehicle needed to increase exhaust noise contribution and improve high frequency dash isolation to achieve the targeted sound quality during acceleration.