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 Accessories 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 Articles 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 Process Weighing 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
March 25, 2021  AUTOMOTIVE, SOUND MEASUREMENT

Road traffic noise is one of the most widespread environmental noise problems globally. It is more than just an annoyance; it is a major health concern. To help reduce noise in our environment, government agencies set pass-by noise emission limits for each category of ground vehicle – critical regulations that must be respected and are a requirement for all automotive OEMs as part of product certification. These regulations are becoming increasingly tough.

How indoor pass-by testing helps vehicle OEMs comply with new noise limits

UN/ECE R51.03, introduced in 2014, altered the driving conditions to put greater emphasis on tyre noise, and defined a timetable to greatly reduce pass-by noise limits. By 2024, the new limit for passenger cars (category M1) will be 68 dB(A) – a reduction of 6dB since R51.03 was introduced. Even for fully electrically powered vehicles this will be a challenge.

Not only are the noise limits becoming harder to meet, the amount of testing required to prove compliance has increased. The Additional Sound Emission Provisions (ASEP) require manufacturers to demonstrate that their vehicles’ sound levels do not significantly differ from the ISO pass-by test result under typical on-road driving conditions, over a broader range of speeds. The current ASEP definition requires four additional speeds for each gear, a total of 24 additional measurements for a 6-speed car. New revisions to ASEP, due in 2021, are likely to increase the volume of testing even more.

With these additional test requirements, and the push for reduced time-to-market requiring more efficient testing, vehicle OEMs face a big challenge to find the test capacity to develop the next generation of vehicles in compliance with the requirements. Indoor pass-by testing is an important part of the answer.

Homologation and conformity

Since 2019, indoor pass-by has been approved for homologation (R51.03 Am4) and conformity of production, and is, therefore, a real alternative to the weather-dependent outdoor method. Measuring a vehicle’s interior and exterior noise during operation is far simpler indoors using a chassis dynamometer in a large hemi-anechoic room. In this controlled environment, measurements are protected from the elements, are highly repeatable, can be made all year round, 24/7, while the stationary vehicle allows easy access for more instrumentation to ascertain the root causes of the emitted noise.

The pass-by test is simulated by driving the stationary vehicle on the dyno as if it were a conventional outdoor pass-by measurement and measuring the emitted sound with a linear array of microphones to either side of the vehicle. The microphone signals are processed together with the vehicle speed to simulate a pass-by result, which is directly comparable, including Doppler correction, with an outdoor result. The standard provides a method for correcting the tyre noise using data from an outdoor measurement on an ISO-compliant test track.

Development and design

When it comes to development and design, there is a long list of possibilities to help vehicle manufacturers investigate and optimize their designs to get through the regulations in a cost-effective way, including noise source quantification methods, such as array acoustics and Source Path Contribution (SPC) analysis.

SPC is a technique for evaluating contributions from different sources to receiver locations, in this case the pass-by microphones. The dominating sources with respect to a given receiver can be highlighted, then further investigations, using CAE or development testing, can focus on those sources. This method is often used to investigate design solutions for meeting both the pass-by noise regulations and interior noise.

With the ever-increasing restrictions on vehicle noise and the importance of correcting problems earlier in the design cycle, indoor pass-by is becoming a crucial tool in the engineer’s toolbox.

Support Content