Triggered by the need for a reduction of CO2-emissions a variety of new powertrain-concepts had been brought up in the latest years. These concepts are ranging from “Micro-Hybrid” over “Full-Hybrid” up to cars powered by an electric machine. Integration of those new powertrain-concepts into passenger vehicles leads to new demands on the acoustic development.
The acoustic development process as many other processes in vehicle engineering follows the so called “V-Model”. Coming from overall subjective and objective N&V-targets, which have to be defined at the very beginning of a vehicle development project, it is essential to break down these targets to system (and even component) level in order to be able to handle the work split between complete vehicle responsibility and suppliers. In the development process these defined targets have to be reached and validated coming from system level to full vehicle level.
Following this “V-Model” the new demands on N&V-development can be made visible. While for “conventional” propulsion systems a lot of experience and benchmarks are available to guide the target setting process, these experiences and benchmarks only exist partly and are strongly dependent on the chosen concept for electrical drives.
For an efficient and strongly simulation-driven (that means simulation with software tools and test-bench) development, a collection of objective benchmark-data is needed to be able to generate the right decisions during the engineering phase. Control system strategies - developed for energy-efficiency - have to be considered early enough during N&V-development to make sure that eventual target conflicts can be sorted out early enough. Furthermore the emphasis in simulation will change from lower to higher frequency-ranges and stronger emphasis will have to be put on ambient noise like wind and rolling noise.