A Survey Study of Steering Wheel Vibration and Sound in Automobiles at Idle

The research presented in this paper describes a field survey of steering wheel vibration and interior car sound in automobiles at idle. The primary objective of the research was to quantify the intensity of the two stimuli in terms of the most commonly used human perception metrics. The steering wheel vibration stimuli were summarised in terms of the un-weighted root-mean-square (r.m.s.) acceleration, the ISO 5349-1 Wh-weighted r.m.s. and the Ws-weighted r.m.s. (Giacomin et al. 2004). The sound stimuli were summarised in terms of the un-weighted sound pressure level in decibels, the A-weighted sound pressure level in decibels and the Zwicker loudness in sones. The secondary objective was to verify if the steering wheel idle vibration and the sound at the ear were significantly different between diesel and gasoline powered automobiles.