Combination of an improved FRF-based substructure synthesis and power flow method with application to vehicle axle noise analysis

In this paper, an improved FRF-based substructure synthesis method combined with power flow analysis is presented and is used for performing a vehicle axle noise analysis. The major transfer paths of axle noise transmitted from chassis to vehicle body are identified and ranked based on power flows transmitted through bushings between the chassis and body. To calculate the power flows, it is necessary to know the reaction forces and the vibrations at the bushing locations on the body side. To this end, the body is represented in terms of experimentally derived frequency response functions (FRF's) at the bushing locations, and the FRF's are coupled with the FEA model of the chassis for performing a total system dynamic analysis. This paper also describes how the FRF's of the vehicle body and the frequency dependent stiffness data of the bushings can be combined together with a simple formulation to better represent the dynamic characteristics of a full vehicle. A classical example is used to illustrates the concept of the method, and the method is then applied to a vehicle axle noise analysis with detailed procedure. The theoretical predictions are compared with experimentally measured results. Good correlation has been obtained.