Acoustic simulation for a vehicle audio system across the full audible frequency

Audio system is an important part of vehicle cabin for various purposes. In vehicle development process, it need be tuned for optimal acoustic performance. Traditionally, this process is performed physically on vehicles. In this paper, a methodology is developed to simulate the acoustic performance of the audio system across the full audible frequency range. To quantify the effectiveness, the p/v acoustic transfer functions of the sound pressures at passengers’ ears over the voltage inputs are measured for 12 different speakers in a production vehicle. As the sound perceived by the passengers depends on both the source and the path, the effort of the numerical study mainly concentrates on two aspects: characterization of the loudspeaker parameters and representation of cabin environment. The speaker parameters are characterized from the sound radiation data measured in 2pi chamber. To represent the vehicle cabin, pure finite element model is applied under 1k Hz while a hybrid FE-SEA is utilized between 1k Hz and 20k Hz. The speaker model is then integrated into the cabin to predict the p/v acoustic transfer functions, where the two-way coupling between speakers and cabin is considered. The result indicates the predicted p/v transfer functions have very good agreement with the data from acoustic measurement. Therefore, performing the audio tuning virtually by numerical simulation is a feasible solution for the industry.