Transfer Path Analysis of a Passenger Car

Sammanfattning: Even though there are no regulations on the interior noise level of passenger cars, it is a significant quality aspect both for customers and for car manufacturers. The reduction of many other car noise sources pushed tyre road noise to the forefront.What is more, well known phenomenon of the tyre acoustic cavity resonance (TCR), appearing around 225 Hz, makes the interior noise noticeably worse. Some techniques to mitigate this phenomenon right at the source are discussed in this thesis, however, these has not been adopted by the tyre nor car manufacturers yet.Therefore, there is a desire to minimise at least the transmission of the acoustic or vibration energy from the tyre to the compartment. This is where methods like TPA (Transfer Path Analysis) come into play.In this thesis, two different approaches to TPA are used to investigate transmission of the TCR energy.First, the coherence based road decomposition method is used to determine whether the TCR energy is transmitted by a structure-borne or an air-borne mechanism. The same method serves to identify if the TCR noise comes mainly from the front or the rear suspension.Second, the impedance matrix method was used to determine critical structure-borne transfer paths yielding clear results indicating two critical mounts at the rear suspension which dominate the transfer of vibro-acoustic energy. Subsequent physical modification of the critical mount was tested to verify the results of the transmission study.Moreover, deflection shape analysis of the tyre, rim, front and rear suspension was performed to identify possible amplification effects of the TCR phenomenon.