Panel Acoustic Contribution Analysis in Automotive Acoustics Using Discontinuous Isogeometric Boundary Element Method

Abstract

In automotive industries, panel acoustic contribution analysis (PACA) is used to investigate the contributions of the body panels to the acoustic pressure at a certain point of interest. Currently, PACA is implemented mostly by either experiment-based methods or traditional numerical methods. However, these schemes are effort-consuming and inefficient in solving engineering problems, thereby restraining the further development of PACA in automotive acoustics. In this work, we propose a PACA scheme using discontinuous isogeometric boundary element method (IGABEM) to build an easily implementable and efficient method to identify the relative acoustic contributions of each automotive body panel. Discontinuous IGABEM is more accurate and converges faster than continuous BEM and IGABEM in the interior sound pressure evaluation of automotive compartments. In this work, a contribution ratio is defined to estimate the relative acoustic contribution of the structure panels; it can be calculated by reusing the coefficient matrix that has already been generated in the sound pressure evaluation process. The utilization of the parallel technique enables the proposed method to be more efficient than conventional methods; it is validated in two numerical examples, including a car passenger compartment subjected to realistic boundary conditions. A sound pressure response experiment based on a steel box is conducted to verify the accuracy of the interior sound pressure calculation using discontinuous IGABEM. This work is expected to promote the practical process of IGABEM for application in automotive acoustic problems.