Optimizing Vehicle NVH Characteristics for Driveline Integration

The automotive marketplace has seen a steady increase in customer demands for quiet and more comfortable vehicles. A customer’s expectations for NVH refinement often contradicts the constraints for lightweight vehicle designs and the need for a powertrain with increased fuel efficiency. The driveline of a vehicle can be a substantial cause of NVH issues. Variants in the driveline architecture (front wheel, rear wheel and four-wheel/all-wheel drive, automatic-, manual-, automatic-shifted manual transmission, etc.) combined with an overall increase in the complexity of the modern driveline systems can make the task of integrating them very challenging. Development of a well refined vehicle requires the understanding and control of several driveline-related noise and vibration problems within different frequency ranges, due to the multitude of driveline components and their potential excitation sources.. A key aspect of the driveline integration process is the realization that a design modification can have an impact on numerous NVH phenomena. .