Experimental and Computational Methods for Investigating Automotive Door Closure Sounds

Abstract

The focus of this investigation was to examine the acoustic trends present during operation of an automotive door closure at two impact speeds through experimental methods. Transient sound pressure of five different door closure mechanisms were collected in a semi-anechoic chamber using a three-element condenser microphone array. Post-processing methodologies such as Sound Pressure Level versus 1/3 Octave band and Continuous Wavelet Transform computations were conducted. These procedures provided an in-depth analysis on the overall generated sound in addition to identifying which frequencies dominate the response at specific impact events during latch operation. Computational model analyses of the closure system using Rigid Body Dynamic and Explicit Dynamic methods using ANSYS to obtain a clearer understanding of the latch component interactions. Recorded average sound pressure level, frequency decomposition, and impact reaction forces are presented in addition to the notable trends between both impacting speeds.