UM19 SPEAKER

Mount Rate Optimization for Full Vehicle NVH Simulations

Computer aided engineering (CAE) tools are extensively utilized in vehicle development to evaluate functional performance for various attributes. Noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) performance for body-on-frame architecture is sensitive to stiffness rates for powertrain and body mounts. Varying the mount rates can result in conflicting performance metrics due to modal interactions between subsystems in a full vehicle model. Hence, a multi-objective optimization routine was developed and validated for a full vehicle finite element model to determine optimal mount rate combinations. This process was implemented for reduction of seat track vibration levels for a full vehicle rough road shake assessment. A design of experiments approach was utilized to generate response surfaces for multiple response parameters and then global optimization was performed. Sensitivity for each response was evaluated for various mounts and optimized mount combinations were picked from the pareto front. The optimized mount rate proposals were then verified using Nastran simulations as well as vehicle testing.