Nowadays, a continually growing system complexity due to the development of an increasing number of vehicle concepts in a steadily decreasing development time forces the engineering departments in the automotive industry to a deepened system understanding. The virtual design and validation of individual components from subsystems up to full vehicles becomes an even more significant role.
As an answer to the challenge of reducing complete hardware prototypes, the virtual competence in NVH, among other methods, has been improved significantly in the last years.
At first, the virtual design and validation of objectified phenomena in analogy to hardware tests via standardized test rigs, e.g. four poster test rig, have been conceived and validated with the so called MBS (Multi Body Systems). On this basis the validated full vehicle MBS-models will be enabled to simulate a driving situation with a realistic road profile to allow a more complete and more realistic assessment of the prototype builds. To meet the challenge of analyzing these new simulation results at the most important comfort positions in the best coordinate direction at the best time, BMW has adopted the use of a ride comfort simulator. With this tool it is possible to experience and evaluate the virtual road simulations. The versatility of this tool is so convincing that nowadays it is not only used for the review of virtual prototype builds, but also for the definition of comfort targets of new vehicle concepts in the very early development phase. Therefore, it is possible to reduce development time and effort and increase overall ride comfort quality.