Muffler Design, Development and Validation for Acoustic Advantages on Automotive Vehicles

Noise pollution has become one of the major environmental concerns in present era. With the ever tightening laws and increasingly straight regulations for controlling noise pollution of automotive vehicles, mufflers are important part of engine system and commonly used in exhaust system to minimize noise caused by exhaust gases. Design of mufflers is a complex function that affects the noise characteristics and fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Traditionally, muffler design has been an iterative process by trial and error method. However theories and science that has undergone development in recent years has given a way for an engineer to cut short number of iterations. In today's competitive world market, it is important for a company to shorten product development cycle time and thereby cost.

The objective of this paper is to propose a practical approach to design, develop and validate muffler practically which will give advantage over conventional method. This paper also emphasis on how modern CAE tools could be leveraged for optimizing overall system design balancing conflicts like noise and back pressure. The project is considered for validation plan on real time vehicle application to realize objective of design as future scope of work.