IC-Engine Source Characterisation and exhaust system simulations

Abstract: To be able to predict the sound pressure level emitted by a exhaust system one must be able to describe the source. The source in the form of an engine can linearly be described as a source strength and a source impedance. An IC-engine can acoustically have a non-linear part meaning that the source characteristics have a dependency on the load. The first part of this work investigates through simulation's in GT-Power how these characteristics are affected by the load connected to the source. The Second part of the work combines the source characteristics with simulations of a muffler and compares to different methods of getting the pressure at the outlet of the exhaust. The first method is direct simulation of the muffler in COMSOL Multiphysics and the second is a transfer matrix based calculation. How sensitive the results at the outlet are to changes in the source impedance is also tested. It is concluded that using five loads for the multiload method in the form of five different lengths on the pipe connecting the engine and muffler works when the pipe have the same length as would be seen in reality. Furthermore, the pipe lengths should have a small range, 100 mm between largest and smallest pipe length giving good results. The source characteristics were at least above 1000 RPM stable enough as to not significantly change the sound pressure level at the outlet.