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The automotive industry is continually moving toward lighter automobiles and components in order to improve fuel economy and reduce costs. The steering wheel is not exempt from this effort, and weight reduction efforts sometimes result in an increased sensitivity to tire imbalance that the customer feels as steering wheel “nibble”. One method of attenuating nibble is to install Dynamic Tuned Absorber (DTA) elements on the steering wheel. DTA's must be tuned to the nibble frequency to provide effective nibble attenuation. When tuned to the nibble frequency, the absorber attenuates the periodic nibble vibrations resulting in reduced steering wheel accelerations and fewer customer complaints. The objective of this experimental effort is to design a test capable of optimizing steering wheel absorber performance in the lab.

A portable in-vehicle NVH data acquisition and analysis system is required to support the product development timing necessary to be competitive in today's automotive market. The components of such a system should include rugged hardware and software to support NVH data acquisition and analysis for frequently performed tests. The system should be easy for the vehicle development engineers to operate while producing results with a high confidence level. Once the data has been measured and analyzed, the system should support automated reporting and databasing of the results. The availability of such a system would make it easy for the vehicle development engineers to perform standardized tests with standardized analysis and reporting. Such a system has been successfully developed at Ford Motor Company.