arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

See All Acoustic End-of-Line Test Systems See All DAQ and instruments See All Electroacoustics See All Software See All Transducers See All Vibration Testing Equipment See All Academy See All Resource Center See All Applications See All Industries See All Insights See All Services See All Support See All Our Business See All Our History See All Our Sustainability Commitment See All Global Presence
arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

See All Actuators See All Combustion Engines See All Durability See All eDrive See All Production Testing Sensors See All Transmission & Gearboxes See All Turbo Charger See All DAQ Systems See All High Precision and Calibration Systems See All Industrial electronics See All Power Analyser See All S&V Hand-held devices See All S&V Signal conditioner See All Test Solutions See All DAQ Software See All Drivers & API See All nCode - Durability and Fatigue Analysis See All ReliaSoft - Reliability Analysis and Management See All Test Data Management See All Utility See All Vibration Control See All Acoustic See All Current / voltage See All Displacement See All Load Cells See All Pressure See All Strain Gauges See All Torque See All Vibration See All LDS Shaker Systems See All Power Amplifiers See All Vibration Controllers See All Accessories for Vibration Testing Equipment See All Training Courses See All Whitepapers See All Acoustics See All Asset & Process Monitoring See All Custom Sensors See All Data Acquisition & Analysis See All Durability & Fatigue See All Electric Power Testing See All NVH See All Reliability See All Smart Sensors See All Vibration See All Weighing See All Automotive & Ground Transportation See All Calibration See All Installation, Maintenance & Repair See All Support Brüel & Kjær See All Release Notes See All Compliance See All Our People
arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

See All CANHEAD See All GenHS See All LAN-XI See All MGCplus See All Optical Interrogators See All QuantumX See All SomatXR See All Accessories See All Accessories See All BK Connect / Pulse See All API See All Microphone Sets See All Microphone Cartridges See All Acoustic Calibrators See All Special Microphones See All Microphone Pre-amplifiers See All Sound Sources See All Accessories for acoustic transducers See All Experimental testing See All Transducer Manufacturing (OEM) See All Accessories See All Non-rotating (calibration) See All Rotating See All CCLD (IEPE) accelerometers See All Charge Accelerometers See All Impulse hammers / impedance heads See All Cables See All Accessories See All Electroacoustics See All Noise Source Identification See All Environmental Noise See All Sound Power and Sound Pressure See All Noise Certification See All Industrial Process Control See All Structural Health Monitoring See All Electrical Devices Testing See All Electrical Systems Testing See All Grid Testing See All High-Voltage Testing See All Vibration Testing with Electrodynamic Shakers See All Structural Dynamics See All Machine Analysis and Diagnostics See All Calibration Services for Transducers See All Calibration Services for Handheld Instruments See All Calibration Services for Instruments & DAQ See All On-Site Calibration See All Resources See All Software License Management

In today’s competitive automotive industry, it is crucial to quickly and accurately evaluate the noise and vibration perceived. Meeting the regulations and improving the experience requires knowing more than just the levels and perceptions people encounter. It is important to know the contributions of the different sources in detail to find the right source of vibroacoustic phenomena. And to mitigate the paths that vibroacoustic energy takes to people, it is crucial to understand how it travels through the structure and through the air.

 

In today’s competitive automotive industry, it is crucial to quickly and accurately evaluate the noise and vibration perceived. Meeting the regulations and improving the experience requires knowing more than just the levels and perceptions people encounter. It is important to know the contributions of the different sources in detail to find the right source of vibroacoustic phenomena. And to mitigate the paths that vibroacoustic energy takes to people, it is crucial to understand how it travels through the structure and through the air.

Source Path Contribution and Time Domain

Is it the source that is too loud, or the path that transmits it too easily? Many technical questions arise when refining development vehicles. Source Path Contribution (SPC) analysis, or transfer path analysis, is a technique for evaluating noise contributions from suspected sound or vibration sources through various acoustic or vibroacoustic paths to a desired receiver location.

With SPC analysis, it is possible to categorize the effects perceived by the observer (receiver) as airborne or structure-borne, and drill progressively deeper into their origins, tracing them back to their source, such as a specific engine mount. Dominant sources with respect to a given receiver can be highlighted to help focus engineering effort where it has the greatest impact. This helps automotive engineers and managers improve their engineering decision-making process and enables parallel evaluation of design alternatives and product variants throughout the vehicle development process.

For effective SPC on vehicles, it is important to analyse transient events, such as run-ups and run-downs and play back modified signals to simulate design changes. Time-domain SPC software allows listening and modification of noise source strengths or path sensitivities to set target levels for individual component sources or transfer paths. Time-domain SPC data can also be transferred to an NVH Simulator model for virtual drive assessments. 

While SPC methods are often used for interior cabin noise analysis, with sources and paths being both acoustic and vibratory, they can also be used for analysing vehicle pass-by noise using an indoor pass-by setup. In some cases, the operating measurements can be combined, for example, measuring with a Head and Torso Simulator (HATS) binaural microphone inside the vehicle whilst also measuring with an indoor pass-by microphone array.

Source Path Contribution for Vehicle Exterior Noise

The BK Connect® Pass-by SPC solution is specially designed for analysing vehicle exterior noise (pass-by noise) using measurements on a chassis dynamometer in a hemi-anechoic chamber.

BK Connect’s unique SPC methodology explicitly calculates source contributions, which enables model validation by comparing the sum of the contributions to the original measurement. The better the match, the more confidence in the results and their downstream use for design optimization or developing solutions to noise problems.


System Setup

For pass-by SPC, indicator microphones are included around each source for the operating measurements. These, in combination with acoustic transfer functions (ATFs) measured using a volume velocity source (VVS), allow operating source strengths to be determined for each individual source. The source contributions are then evaluated and processed at each pass-by array microphone in the same way as in a standard indoor pass-by test. This creates a pass-by noise simulation with contributions from each source. The overall SPC result is validated using the standard pass-by result.

The BK Connect method includes component source modelling, where groups of sources represent individual physical components as independent sources. For example, each engine face, the intake orifice, and the exhaust orifice, may be modelled as individual component sources. Each component source then has an associated contribution to the total result.

 

Related Products

Source Path Contribution for Interior Sound and Vibration

The SPC system evaluates noise and vibration contributions for structure-generated phenomena using the mount stiffness or impedance matrix methods, and for airborne phenomena using the source substitution method.

Time-domain SPC enables the resulting noise contributions to be evaluated in the Insight 8601-S software using binaural playback while making real-time modifications of individual source strengths, or by modifying the noise paths in the frequency domain.

The Insight software can act as a bridge to CAE models, combining test data and CAE output to produce hybrid models that highlight various design options. Such models can also be exported to the NVH Simulator for virtual drive assessments.

System Setup

time domain source path contribution

A typical configuration consists of BK Connect data acquisition software with SPC viewer (7798-A), Time domain SPC (7798-E), Insight 8601-S software and LAN-XI data acquisition hardware. Use Insight to experience the results of experimental, hybrid or purely analytical CAE-based SPC data through interactive playback and analysis of the results.

We also highly recommended high-quality binaural sound playback hardware for which we can provide advice. Accelerometers, microphones, hammers, etc., are also needed for the input data to SPC. It works with data acquired by BK Connect/LAN-XI data acquisition systems as well as most other data acquisition systems and most CAE solutions.

How will each component contribute to the overall sound of a product? How can you tell where the sound is coming from? How does it travel to where you hear it? And what can you do to improve the sound of the vehicle? Whether assessing the contributions of an engine on a test bed, or identifying operational contributions on the road, Time-domain Source Path Contribution (SPC) allows you to assess transfer paths and contributions to quickly evaluate the noise and vibration perceived by vehicle occupants. Our unique time-domain technology allows you to listen to and compare data sets back-to-back, and assess the effects that developments will have on the final products through SPC models. The system can also inspect data in the frequency domain, giving great flexibility. 

System suggestion

Time-Domain Source Path Contribution system overview

A typical configuration consists a PULSE data acquisition system with SPC viewer (7798-A), Time domain (7798-E) and Insight 8601-S software and LAN-XI hardware. We also highly recommended proper sound playback hardware – sound card ZH-0677, headphone amp ZE-0769 and headphones HT-0017. Accelerometers, microphones, hammers, etc., are also needed.

SPC works with data acquired with PULSE data acquisition systems as well as most other data acquisition systems and most CAE solutions.

SPC offers a bridge between real-world experimental data and analytical data generated from CAE models. Combine test and CAE results in SPC to produce hybrid models or virtual prototypes. Use Insight to experience the results of experimental, hybrid or purely analytical CAE-based SPC data through interactive playback and analysis of the results.

System suggestion

Integration of CAE and test data system overview

For SPC Integration of CAE/Test, a typical configuration consists of SPC Viewer (7798-A), Time-domain SPC (7798-E) and Insight 8601-S. We also highly recommended proper sound playback hardware including sound card ZH-0677, headphone amp ZE-0769 and headphones HT-0017

DTS CAE Auditioner (8601-X) is an optional model for Insight Type 8601-S and can quickly incorporate source strengths and transfer functions from common CAE programs into the Insight evaluation tool.