Design parameters for automotive components can be highly affected by the requirements imposed for vehicle pass-by compliance. The key systems affecting pass-by performance generally include the engine, tires, intake system, and exhaust system. The development of these systems is often reliant on the availability of prototype hardware for physical testing on a pass-by course, which can lead to long and potentially costly development cycles. These development cycles can benefit significantly from the ability to utilize analytical data to guide development of component-level design parameters related to pass-by noise.
To achieve this goal, test and analysis methods were developed to estimate the vehicle-level pass-by performance from component level data, both from physical and/or analytical sources. The result allows for the estimation of the overall vehicle-level pass-by noise along with the contributions to the total and dominant frequency content from each of the key noise sources. This information can be utilized in two distinctly different ways. First, the pass-by noise levels can be estimated for new component-level design alternatives, from either physical testing and/or analytical predictions. Secondly, a target pass-by noise level can be specified and the required acoustic performance for the dominant noise sources can be calculated.
Utilizing component-level data to estimate vehicle pass-by performance provides the ability to evaluate multiple design alternatives in a time and cost-effective manner, as well as balance potential countermeasures and design alternatives across multiple noise sources. Dependency on physical prototype hardware can be reduced, allowing for estimation of pass-by noise levels with reduced reliance on vehicle-level testing.