Céline Sandier

SmEdA Vibro-Acoustic Modeling of a Trimmed Truck Cab in the Mid-Frequency Range

The City Lightweight and Innovative Cab (CLIC) project was a scientific collaboration gathering public and private organizations. The aim was to propose an innovative lighten truck cab, where a high strength steel was used. As long as it could affect directly the acoustic environment of the cab, it was necessary to be able to simulate the vibroacoustic behavior of the truck cab in the mid frequency range. The dissipative treatments used for noise and vibration control such as viscoelastic patches and acoustic absorbing materials must then be taken into account in the problem. A process based on the SmEdA (Statistical modal Energy distribution Analysis) method was developed and is presented in this paper. SmEdA allows us substructuring the global problem, to study the interaction between the floor and the interior cavity. The process consists in building finite element models (FEM) of each subsystem (floor, internal cavity), including the dissipative material (damping layer, poroelastic material). Standard modal FEM calculations are then performed for each uncoupled subsystem. From the spatial mode shapes, and the modal strain -kinetic energies, the modal loss factors of both subsystems are estimated. Finally, the pressure levels inside the cavity are deduced from the resolution of the SmEdA equations. To validate this process, a truck cabin has been excited mechanically on a rail of the floor and the pressure levels at different positions inside the cabin were measured for different configurations of dissipative treatment. Comparisons between SmEdA and experimental results allows us to assess the accuracy of the proposed method.

Vibro-Acoustic Modeling of a Trimmed Truck Cabin in Low Frequency Range to Tackle the Challenge of Weight Reduction

In the challenge of reducing the weight of the vehicle structures, a particular focus has to be done on the interior noise. Indeed, the weight reduction of the structure often implies an increase of the noise in the cabin. To maintain a constant acoustic performance, acoustic packages often have to be added, the challenge being that the weight of the acoustic materials added remains lower than the weight saved in the structure. In today’s engineering world, numerical simulation is the primary tool to assess the vibro-acoustic behavior of the vehicle during the design phase. To tackle the challenge of weight reduction, it is necessary to simulate accurately the vibro-acoustic response of the structure including the acoustic treatments. This paper presents the validation of a simulation method for the vibro-acoustic response of a truck cabin, taking into account the effect of acoustic treatments, in the frequency range [0-200 Hz]. The method combined a modal scheme for the structure and the cavity with a physical scheme for the acoustic treatment (porous materials). The model consists in a truck cabin with its cavity and five acoustic treatments (three floormats, the headliner and the rear trim panel). A measurement campaign is performed to get reference NTFs, VTFs and local inertances. The model without any treatments is first correlated. The noise reduction given by each treatment alone as well as grouped together is simulated. The comparisons between the simulated and measured results show good agreement both in term of spectrum and amplitude. Although some discrepancies in the low frequency range remain unexplained, the method is considered as validated