Recent progress in reduced-scale modelling of vehicle interior noise

The paper gives a review of the recent research into simplified reduced-scale models of structure-borne vehicle interior noise carried out in Loughborough University. The models under consideration evolve from the simplest ones to more sophisticated developments that take into consideration some important structural dynamic and acoustic features of real vehicles. Analytical and numerical approaches to the theoretical description of such models are discussed. The results of theoretical calculations are compared with the measurements on some reduced-scale models. The comparison of the theory with the measurements demonstrates that simplified reduced-scale models can be used successfully for studying interior noise in real road vehicles. One of the most important issues in this approach is to find a compromise between the minimum degree of complexity of a model and the required accuracy of description of frequency contents and noise levels in a real vehicle.