Analytical Predictions and Correlation With Physical Tests for Potential Buzz, Squeak, and Rattle Regions in a Cockpit Assembly

The perceived interior noise has been one of the major driving factors in the design of automotive interior assemblies. Buzz, Squeak and Rattle (BSR) issues are one of the major contributors toward the perceived quality in a vehicle. Traditionally BSR issues have been identified and rectified through extensive hardware testing. In order to reduce the product development cycle and minimize the number of costly hardware builds, however, one must rely on engineering analysis and simulation upfront in the design cycle.

In this paper, an analytical and experimental study to identify potential BSR locations in a cockpit assembly is presented. The analytical investigation utilizes a novel and practical methodology, implemented in the software tool Nhance.BSR, for identification and ranking of potential BSR issues. The emphasis here is to evaluate the software for the BSR predictions and the identification of modeling issues, rather than to evaluate the cockpit design itself for BSR issues.

The methodology is based on modal and forced frequency response analysis utilizing the finite element model of the structural assembly. The analytical results are compared herein with the experimental findings for two types of load spectra and the correlation is found to be very good.