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Nowadays the increase and maintenance of a car manufacturer market share is greatly influenced by the appeal its products design, wherein the headlights occupy a distinctive position. However, the headlights designers' constant search for newer and innovative designs sometimes yields difficulties regarding the thermal management of these components, requiring cautious material selection, and special care in the parabolas dimensioning and positioning of bulbs and vents in the case. This work shows how a simulation strategy based on the finite volume method can be utilized to predict the headlight airflow and plastic walls temperature distribution induced by the bulbs thermal radiation. The main goal of this modeling is to raise and treat potential temperature issues early in the development cycle, guiding the corrective design actions, and supporting the material selection and specification process.

Rattle noise produced in the vehicle interior due to broadband excitation by road irregularities is a major concern with respect to driving comfort, and therefore has become one of the most important topics of acoustic development in recent years. A quantification i.e. measurement of this rattle noise is of fundamental importance for systematic development work and production control. Common noise level measurements (dB, dBA, etc. ) do not represent the rattle character in the vehicle interior as revealed during initial investigations. To overcome this problem and to substitute the subjective assessment with a combination of measurable parameters, the psychoacoustic software AVL-EAR was applied to create an Interior Rattle Quality Index. Based on more than 40 different vehicles that have been subjectively assessed by approximately 70 test persons, the index was generated by means of multiple pair comparisons and statistics on measurement data.