A Steel Solution for a Firewall Using a Hybrid Test/CAE Approach

The firewall design of a BMW1 is optimized for interior noise and weight using a Hybrid Interior Noise Synthesis (HINS) approach. This method associates a virtual firewall with a test based body model.

A vibro-acoustic model of the firewall panel, including trim elements and full vehicle boundary conditions, is used for predictions in the 40 Hz - 400 Hz range. The short calculation time of this set-up allows multiple design iterations.

The firewall noise is reduced by 0.9 dB and its mass by 5.1% through structural changes. Crashworthiness is maintained at its initial level using advanced steel processing. The total interior noise shows improvement in the 90 Hz - 140 Hz range.