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The contribution of wind noise through the glasses into the vehicle cabin is a large source of customer concern. The wind noise sources generated by turbulent flow incident on the vehicle surfaces and the transmission mechanisms by which the noise is transmitted to the interior of the vehicle are complex and difficult to predict using conventional analysis techniques including Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and acoustic analyses are complicated by the large differences between turbulent pressures and acoustic pressures. Testing in dedicated acoustic wind tunnel (AWT) facilities is often performed to evaluate the contribution of wind noise to the vehicle interior noise in the absence of any other noise sources. However, this testing is time-consuming and expensive and test hardware for the vehicle being developed is often not yet available at early stages of vehicle design.

Energy Finite Element Analysis (EFEA) is an emerging modeling technique that combines the advantages of SEA and FEA. It has potential as an excellent tool for predicting structure-borne vibration and radiation to surrounding acoustic spaces with relatively fast model development time. Energy decay across a subsystem due to damping is predicted via a mesh of nodes, similar to FEA, enabling more localized predictions than SEA. This type of distributed response prediction is needed for complex structures like vehicle floors with discrete sources like engine mounts and exhaust hangars. This presentation will show EFEA predictions for a recent model vehicle and compare the predictions with measured data.