Rattle noise source localization through the time reversal of dispersive vibration signals on a road vehicle

Abstract This paper proposes a localization method to identify the source of impulsive rattle generation on a road vehicle. The proposed method makes use of numerical time reversal for dispersive vibrations on the vehicle frames that consist of multi-linked paths with junctions. The vibrations propagated to the vehicle were analyzed in the time and frequency domains via the spectral element method (SEM). The vibration interactions resulted from structural spans of the vehicle were examined in terms of the propagated pathways with the junctions. The multi-node time reversal was proposed to implement re-emission procedures from all independent nodes. The modified spectral matrices of the proposed procedure enabled the multi-node time reversal under consideration of the structural spans of the vehicle. The proposed method was verified by an actual vehicle test. The combination of the SEM and the multi-node time reversal allows effective localization of rattle noise sources in vehicles.