Development of Acoustic Simulations using Parametric CAD Models in COMSOL

Abstract: With constantly changing regulations on emissions, heavy commercial vehicles manufacturershave to adapt for their products to preserve their quality while meetingthese new requirements. Over the past decades, noise emissions have become a greatconcern and new stricter laws demand companies to decrease their vehicle pass-bynoise target values.To address the requirements from different disciplines, Scania follows a simulationdriven design process to develop new concept models EATS. The collaboration amongengineers from different fields is thereby necessary in order to obtain higher performancesilencers. However, the pre-processing step in terms of acoustic simulationsis time-consuming, which can slow the concept development process.In this thesis, a new method was introduced to automate the pre-processing of silenceracoustic models and allow for design optimisation based on acoustic performanceresults. A common Scania product study case was provided to several theseswithin the NXD organisation. The collaboration among the master thesis workersaimed to demonstrate the benefits of KBE and MDO and how they can be integratedwithin Scania’s current concept development and product introduction processes.The performed work was divided in the following steps: data collection, methoddevelopment and concluding work. The first step consisted in gathering sufficientknowledge by conducting a thorough literature review and interviews. Then, an initialmethod was formulated and tested on a simplified silencer model. Once approvedand verified, the method was applied to the study case EATS.The study case showed that a complex product can have its acoustic pre-processingstep automated by ensuring a good connectivity among the required software anda correct denomination of the geometrical objects involved in the simulations. Themethod investigated how morphological optimisations can be performed at bothglobal and local levels to enhance the transmission loss of a silencer. Besides optimisingthe acoustic performance of the models, the method allowed the identificationof correlations and inter-dependencies among their design variables and ouput parameters.