Tire Noise Synthesis from Test Stand Measurements and CAE Full Vehicle Model

Tire/Road noise is a dominant contribution to a vehicle interior noise and requires significant engineering resources during vehicle development. A process has been developed to support automotive OEMs with road noise engineering during vehicle design and development which has test as its basis but takes advantage of simulation to virtually accelerate road noise improvement. The process uses noise sources measured on a single tire installed on a test stand in a chassis dynamometer. The measured sources are then combined with vehicle level transfer functions calculated using a Finite-Element model for structure-borne noise and a Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) model for airborne noise to predict the total sound at the driver’s ears. The process can be applied from the initial stages of a vehicle development program and allows the evaluation of vehicle road noise performance as perceived by the driver long before the first prototype is available. This process is also extensible to other types of sources and loads impacting vehicle interior acoustics as proposed in [2, 8].