Nonlinear Acoustic Analysis of Loudspeakers in the Exhaust Dynamic Sound Technology

An ongoing trend among automotive exhaust suppliers is the application of loudspeakers in their systems to tailor the exhaust sound to the customers’ needs. In addition to it, undesirable engine order noise can be cancelled by a closed loop control system. Due to the high sound pressure from the engine, the loudspeaker is often required to run at its power maximum. A higher input power eventually causes a nonlinear behavior, resulting in undesirable sound pressure level or harmonic distortion. Thus, the understanding of nonlinear behavior of loudspeakers and the recognition of dominant effects are required. This paper presents the main nonlinearities of loudspeakers and the comparison of theories on linear and non-linear loudspeaker models. For validation of the model, one loudspeaker enclosure and one typical exhaust system with a loudspeaker have been calculated. Ultimately it was found that a nonlinear loudspeaker model would be essential for a precise tuning of active exhaust sound systems.