Computational Accuracy and Efficiency of the Element Types and Sizes for Car Acoustic Finite Element Model 2014-01-0890

Automobile cabin acoustical comfort is one of the main features that may attract customers to purchase a new car. The acoustic cavity mode of the car has an effect on the acoustical comfort. To identify the factors affecting computing accuracy of the acoustic mode, three different element type and six different element size acoustic finite element models of an automobile passenger compartment are developed and experimentally assessed. The three different element type models are meshed in three different ways, tetrahedral elements, hexahedral elements and node coupling tetrahedral and hexahedral elements (tetra-hexahedral elements). The six different element size models are meshed with hexahedral element varies from 50mm to 75mm. Modal analysis test of the passenger car is conducted using loudspeaker excitation to identify the compartment cavity modes. All the acoustic cavity models are coupled with the structure model respectively, the cavity modes are calculated with structural-acoustic coupling model. According to the comparison of experimental results and calculated results, the impact factor of an acoustic finite mode computational accuracy is concluded.