Vehicle door seal modeler for wind noise

Wind‐noise performance of a passenger vehicle plays a significant role in the customer’s perception of overall vehicle quality. Wind noise aerodynamically generated on the exterior surface of a vehicle can propagate to the vehicle interior through body panels, window glass, and the seal gap between the door and door opening panel. Experimental studies indicate that automotive door seal systems are generally a major contributor to the vehicle wind‐noise performance. Traditionally, automotive door seals are designed using the ‘‘bread board’’ and other ‘‘build and test’’ procedures. Two new finite‐element‐based acoustic‐structure analysis tools have been developed to evaluate the wind‐noise performance of door sealing system. These validated CAE techniques allow the engineer to predict door seal system performance in sound transmission and aspiration leakage before the availability of prototype hardware. These methods combine the separate analysis capabilities of finite‐element analysis for acoustics, rubber...