Musser C., Moron P.

Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) is a very useful analytical design tool to predict the effect of sound package, construction, and pass-through design changes to automotive dash, floor, roof, and door structures. A validated SEA model can be used to identify the effective design variables and to determine the optimal combinations required to meet a particular component level target. One of the current limitations of a purely analytical SEA technique is that a model can predict the amount of energy transmitted through a subassembly into the passenger compartment and can predict the mean acoustic response within the cabin as a summation of the energy through separate parts of the subassembly, but this information cannot automatically be combined to form an exact driver or passenger’s ear SPL response level with a purely analytical formulation. Fortunately, SEA is a flexible analysis framework that can implement measured transfer function data into the subsystem coupling by replacing the default analytically calculated coupling between the dash surface and interior airspace subsystems with coupling factors determined by dash surface to driver’s ear transfer functions. The development of a hybrid technique that uses measured transfer functions between points on the cabin side of the dash to the driver’s ear will be presented as a novel approach to taking SEA prediction of energy transmitted through a dash for various configurations and using the measured transfer function data to process the SEA prediction data into a predicted driver’s ear SPL level. The requirements, advantages, and limitations to using this technique will be presented. A proof of principle set of validation data with a corresponding SEA model making use of the transfer function measurements will be shown.