Estimation of Blocked Forces in an Assembly with Rear Drive Unit as a Source

Abstract: Experimental validations are widely used for studying dynamic structural behaviors and these studies involve defining the structures completely as being used in real time. While in numerical simulations such detailed features are not specified to ease the computation, thereby deviating from accurate results. Hence experimental validations are more desired in product developments process. Applications of experimental verification for noise and vibration (referred to as NVH inautomotive industry) are expanding over the last few decades. Researchers are exploring ways to predict the responses on the new receiver using receiver independent forces, which led to evolution of component based TPA (Transfer Path Analysis) concept. The Component based TPA concept is an important development in automotive industry. It allows the auto manufacturers to make use of their available subsystems (like motor or a gearbox) in their newly developing vehicles. This has been made possible by defining the dynamic forces exerted by the source independent of receiving structure, which are then used to predict the responses on the new receiver. Evaluation of such receiver independent forces allows measurements to be made in a test rig rather than in the vehicle. This indeed helps in better communication between different departments or between suppliers and vehicle manufacturers, saves design iterations and time, and would help vehicle manufactures to predict the vehicle structural behaviors much before the first prototype is made. The method is based on the international standard ISO 20270:2019 (en) Acoustics – Characterization of sources of structure-borne sound and vibration – indirect measurement of blocked forces. The thesis is based on evaluating the source characterized forces that are used for predicting responses on a new receiving structure. For this, different methods in TPA are explored and for the rear drive unit application, in-situ method is chosen. The source characterized forces also termed as blocked forces are computed in different test set up and a validation check is performed. The obtained results are also compared with FEM and useful conclusions are drawn. And finally contact forces evaluated by integrating the subsystems are compared to the contact forces derived from the source characterized forces.