Prediction of exterior sound field of an automotive for airborne excitation and transmission to the interior of the vehicle

In the automotive industry, several airborne noise sources are highly perceived by the car passengers. The perceived quality of the vehicle depends how these noises are transmitted to the interior of the vehicle. The most dominant airborne sources are: the engine, the tyres and the exhaust. Simulation models can be created to represent the exterior sound pressure level around the vehicle for a given airborne source. An extensive measurement campaign has been done in order to collect informations to validate BEM simulation models using point acoustic sources at several locations. In this paper, the results of the simulation model will be compared to the measurements.In a second step, the response inside the vehicle will also be analyzed. At low frequency using a fully coupled FEM/BEM model and at higher frequency using directly the results obtained from the rigid BEM model of the exterior soundfield to excite a full vehicle SEA model. A comparison of the simulation results will be made against the measurements.