VIBRATION AND ACOUSTIC OPTIMIZATION OF BODY IN

WHITE BASED ON THE PLATE COUPLING SYSTEM

LI Wei1,2HE Yansong1,2XU Zhongming1,2ZHANG Zhifei1,2 & XIA Xiaojun1,2
1. The State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmissions, Chongqing University, Chongqing,
China 400030. 2. College of Automotive Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing,
China 400030.
e-mail:liwei_3072@cqu.edu.cn

Topology optimization of a passive constrained layer damping (PCLD) plate coupled with an
acoustic cavity is presented in attempt to simultaneously minimize the structure-acoustic
coupling system noise level and reduce the usage of the PCLD material. A finite element (FE)
model is developed to simulate such a structure-acoustic coupling system based on the thin
plate and glass box. The model is integrated with a topology optimization approach which
employs the SIMP method. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the
proposed approach in controlling the sound pressure by proper redistribution of the
constrained damping material. Experimental verification is carried out by manufacturing
topology optimized PCLD plate and monitoring its sound pressure of the coupling system.
The measured sound pressure is found to be in good agreement with the simulation. Based
on such method, topology optimization of PCLD material is used to minimize minibus
vibration and noise, which has reduced A-weighted sound pressure near the drivers right ear
and has improved minibus NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance.

1. Introduction
Interior noise in a vehicle is an important parameter for the evaluation of global comfort
perceived by passengers and drivers. And generally noise generated by the vehicle system vibrating
may affect the drivers focus, which might lead to a fatal accident. So, it is highly desired to find an
effective way to reduce the noise and vibration of the vehicle, and this problem arises researchers
greatest interest.
At present, there are mainly two effective ways to improve the interior noise level. One is to use
structure optimization method to optimize the shape and structure of the vehicle body, which will
increase its stiffness and reduce its interior noise. An intensive research work was devoted to this
aspect[1-2]. The other way is to incorporate damping materials on the surface of the vehicle body.
Previous research has showed that the damping material can suppress the vibration and noise in a
fairly wide frequency band[3]. In order to increase the energy dissipated in the damping material by
exposing it to shear rather normal stresses, a relatively rigid layer named constrained layer is
applied on the top of the damping layer[4]. Owing to the consideration of cost and weight in many

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situations, partial PCLD treatment is obviously more practical[5-6]. Aiming to maximize the
vibration damping of structures with minimum PCLD, many efforts have been made to the optimal
design of PCLD treatments of vibrating structures. In recent studies on optimal attachment of PCLD
treatment for vibration suppression of plates, the modal loss factor and displacement response are
the objective functions, which mainly concentrate on the structure vibration[7-11]. In the last decade,
an increasing number of studies have been devoted to the optimization of structure-acoustic
properties of the vibration structures[12-13]. Therein, various acoustical characteristics have been
taken as the objective function, including natural frequency of the coupling system, sound power of
interior or exterior sound radiation, the sound pressure level at the reference point and the structure-
acoustic interactions.
In this article, a plate-cavity coupling system is presented. Based on the coupling system, an FE
model is developed to predict the sound pressure at the reference point. Topology optimization is
then used to estimate the distribution of the PCLD attached on the plate. And an experiment is
designed to validate the optimal result. Finally the PCLD and its topology optimization are
employed to the minibus, which demonstrates this method can reduce the interior noise of the
automobile at lower cost.

2. Study on plate-cavity coupling system

In order to study topology optimization of the structure-acoustic coupling system and the PCLD,
a plate-cavity coupling system is designed to validate this method according to reference [14]. The
plate-cavity coupling system consists of a steel plate, a glass box and a cavity, see Figure 1. The
thickness of the steel plate is 1 mm, and the length, width, height and thickness of the box are 600
mm, 450 mm, 500 mm and 12 mm. The coupling system is sealed by foam rubber.

Figure 1. The plate-cavity coupling system with measurement system

2.1 The plate-cavity FE model

Assuming the structure vibration is excited by harmonic force denoted by Fs=Fei2ft, with the
frequency f and amplitude F. The acoustical response under the mechanical excitation Fs and the
structural-acoustic coupling effects are governed by
M s 0 X Cs 0 X K s L X Fs
T
K f P 0
(1)
0 L M f P 0 C f P 0
where Ms, Cs and Ks respectively represent mass matrix, damping matrix and stiffness matrix of
the structure, and Mf, Cf and Kf respectively represent correspondent matrix of the fluid; , , and X
are the vectors of acceleration, velocity and displacement of the vibrating structure, respectively.
The symbol P represents the vector of acoustical pressure of the acoustical cavity and L is the
structure-acoustic coupling matrix. In this analysis, the acoustical medium is air. According to the
finite element method, frequency response can be calculated under the different frequencies
excitation Fs.
The FE model of the plate-cavity coupling system is built by the software HyperMesh, see
Figure 2. In this model, shell elements are used in the steel plate FE model and hexahedral elements
are employed in the box and acoustical cavity model. A unit white noise external force Fs is applied

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at the center point of the plate, and the reference point is positioned at 470 mm distance from the
exciting point. Frequency response curve from 20 Hz to 100 Hz is computed by the way of modal
frequency response method, see Figure 3. It can be seen from the curve that there is a narrowband
peak at 45 Hz, which will be suppressed by incorporating the PCLD on the steel plate. The specific
parameters of PCLD are illustrated in Table 1. After the PCLD treatment, sound peak pressure is
cut down obviously which demonstrates that adding PCLD to the plate can reduce the peak of
sound pressure.
Table 1. Material parameters of PCLD
Modulus of
Density/kg/ Poisson Material
Structure Material elasticity
m3 ratio loss factor
/MPa
Basic layer Steel 207 000 7800 0.3 --
Damping Damping
20 1200 0.45 0.8
layer material
Constrained
Aluminum 72 000 2700 0.33 --
layer

Figure 2. The plate-cavity coupling system FE Figure 3. Comparison of three cases

model

Topology optimization of PCLD

Optimization model can usually be expressed as seeking the best value of design variables within
a given constraint which minimizes or maximizes the objective function. The penalization
technique used is the power law representation of elasticity properties, which can be expressed
for any solid 3-D or 2-D element as follows:
(2) K ( ) p K
where K and K represent the penalized and the real stiffness matrix of an element, respectively,
01 is the density and p is the penalization factor which is always greater than 1.
min : P
n
s.t. : Ve e V 0
(3) e 1

s 0 X C s 0 X K s L X Fs
M

0 L M f P 0 C f P 0 K f P 0
T

0 1, i 1,2, n
min i

Find : [ , ,, ]
1 2 n

In this paper, the sound pressure P at the reference point is taken as the objective function, and
the volume fraction ratio of the PCLD is limited to 60%. The topology optimization problem can be
expressed above.

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Where =[1, 2,, n] is the vector of design variables representing the relative density of the
PCLD in each element. P is the symbol of the sound pressure at the reference point. Ve and e
denote the PCLD volume and relative density of eth element. The symbol 0 represents density of
the air, and min is the lower limit of density in case of the singular matrix.
Through RKU method, the damping layer and the constrained layer of the PCLD plate are
equivalent to one layer as the design domain. After topology optimization, the optimal result is
presented in Figure 4, and the ultimate pasted scheme is illustrated in Figure 5. After the calculation,
the final frequency response curve is given in Figure 3, which demonstrates that the optimal PCLD
reduces sound pressure amplitude effectively and obviously compared to the original PCLD
treatment.

Figure 4. Optimal PCLD distribution Figure 5. Final PCLD distribution

2.2 Experiment verification

100

No PCLD experiment
90
Optimal PCLD experiment
Sound pressure amplitude/Pa

80
Full PCLD experiment
70 No PCLD simulation
60

50

40

30

20

10

0
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Frequency/Hz

Figure 6. Frequency sound responses of simulation Figure 7. PCLD distribution in the experiment
and experiment
To verify the validity of optimization method, the frequency pressure response is acquired by the
way of modal impact using LMS test system, in Figure 6. From the comparison between the
simulation and the experiment, the peak values are close to each other, while there are great
differences in other parts. There are mainly two factors leading to the errors. One is the air leakage
between the plate and the glass box, and the other is that damping material property is assumed to
be independent of frequency as a constant. According to the optimal result, the PCLD distribution
in the experiment is showed in Figure 7. From the experiment result, the full PCLD treatment
reduces the pressure peak by 43.9 Pa, and the optimal PCLD treatment decreases the pressure peak
by 39.6 Pa, which proves that topology optimization method of PCLD can suppress vibration and
lower noise under reduction of PCLD cost.

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3. Acoustic optimization of minibus body in white

3.1 The FE model of minibus coupling system

Figure 8. Structural FE model of the minibus Figure 9. Acoustical FE model of the minibus
Based on the plate-cavity coupling system, the minibus structure and acoustical FE models are
built in Figure 8 and Figure 9. Combining the structural model and acoustical model, the coupling
FE model is established.

3.2 Frequency response analysis

According to the Acoustics -- Measurement of noise inside motor vehicles (ISO 5128-1980),
the specific location of the drivers right ear is defined as a reference point. Vertical unit white noise
is applied to the engine mounts ranging from 20 Hz to 200 Hz. The modal frequency response
method is used through the software Nastran. In order to ensure the accuracy of calculation, modal
cutoff frequency should be 1.5 times higher than calculated frequency, generally 1.5~2 times. A-
weighted sound pressure frequency response of reference point is computed as shown in Figure 10.
As can be seen from the curve, the sound peak of reference point at 63 Hz has a narrow bandwidth,
which can be suppressed by PCLD treatment. Therefore, the sound pressure at 63 Hz is set as
optimized objective. While there are numerous panels in vehicle body, it is impossible that all the
panels are treated with PCLD. Thus it is necessary to make modal and panel participations at
reference point of 63 Hz and paste PCLD onto the greatest contribution panel, which can improve
the efficiency.

Figure 10. A-weighted sound pressure at reference point

3.3 Analysis of structure model participation

Modal participation at 63 Hz
100

80
Modal participation%

60

40

20

-20

-40
Response Mode16 Mode27 Mode25 Mode7 Mode22 Mode4 Mode59 Mode20 Mode5 Mode55 Others
Modal order

Figure 11. Structure modal participation at 63 Hz Figure 12. The 9th order coupling system mode
Structural modal participation can be explained as contribution of each order structure modal to
the sound pressure response at reference point. And structure modal participation factor C*S can be
defined as:

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(4) Cs* 2 f ZaT f

in which f, a, f are the acoustical modal vector, the fluid-structural coupling matrix and the
acoustical modal coordinates. Z=(-2mf+icf+kf)-1. And mf, cf and kf respectively are the modal
mass matrix, the modal damping matrix and the modal stiffness matrix of acoustical cavity, which
are diagonal matrices.
Through the modal participation analysis, modal participation of each mode can be obtained in
Figure 11. As can be seen from the graph, the 7th, 16th, 25th, and 27th modal participations are higher
than the others, and while 16th is the greatest one. Here the number of the mode includes six rigid
modes and the first consistent acoustical mode, which means that the 9th mode has the highest
contribution to the sound pressure response at reference point. From the mode shape in Figure 12,
the strongest vibrating position is the roof.

3.4 Analysis of panel participation

Panel participation is the contribution of panels surrounding the cavity to the sound pressure
response at reference point. The panel participation factor C*p of the interface can be calculated
through the formula
(5) C *p 2 f Z Tf AT s f

where s is the structural modal vector, and A represents coupling matrix of panel and the cavity.
To further determine the greatest contribution panel at 63 Hz, panel participation is made, and the
panels surrounding the cavity are divided into 10 parts listed in Table 2. The final result is presented
in Figure 13. It is obvious that the roof has the highest contribution except for doors and windows
which is difficult to paste the PCLD. This conclusion is identical to the modal participation. So
pasting the PCLD onto the roof can effectively reduce the sound pressure at the reference point.
Table 2. Number of each panel
NO. Panel name NO. Panel name
1 Front door 6 Roof
2 Windshield 7 Back floor
3 Front door glass 8 Back door
4 Rear back door 9 Back door glass
5 Front floor 10 Front wall

Panel participation at 63 Hz
100

80
Panel participation%

60

40

20

-20
Response 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Other
Panels

Figure 13. Panel participation at 63 Hz Figure 14. The roof with PCLD FE model
The roof FE model treated with PCLD is illustrated in Figure 14. The base layer and constrained
layer are built by shell elements, while the damping layer is modeled by solid elements, the
parameters of each layer are presented in Table 3. In order to reduce the usage of the PCLD and
guarantee noise reduction, topology optimization method is employed on PCLD.
Table 3. Material parameters of each layer

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Modulus of Density Poisson Material

Structure Material
elasticity/MPa /kg/m3 ratio loss factor
Base layer Quality steel 207 000 7800 0.3 --
Damping layer Damping material 7.1 1200 0.45 0.8
Constrained layer Aluminum alloy 45 000 1800 0.35 --

3.5 Analysis of panel contribution

Utilizing the RKU method, we represent the damping layer and the constrained layer with an
equivalent layer as the design domain, and set the sound pressure of reference point at 63 Hz and
the volume fraction 60% as the objective and constraint respectively. The optimal result is
illustrated in Figure 15. The densities of blue regions are close to zero, which should be deleted.
And the green and red regions should be retained, which densities are close to one. The final pasted
scheme is made by the optimal result and the convenience of PCLD treatment in Figure 16. Finally,
the frequency sound responses of three states, no PCLD treatment, full PCLD treatment and optimal
PCLD treatment are calculated by modal frequency response method, as shown in Figure 17. The
peak sound pressures of the three situation at 63 Hz are listed in Table 4. The full PCLD treatment
has the best noise reduction, which lowers A-weighted sound pressure level by 12.4 dBA
comparing to the no PCLD treatment, while the optimal PCLD treatment has a noise reduction of
10.0 dBA. The volume of PCLD after optimization takes up 60.23% of the full PCLD treatment.
Therefore, this method can reduce the usage of the PCLD and guarantee noise reduction, which is
valuable and significant to the lightweight vehicle body.
Table 4. Three cases of 63 Hz A weighted sound pressure level

Status A weighted sound pressure level /dBA

No PCLD 61.7
Full PCLD 49.3
Optimal PCLD 51.7

Figure 15. The optimal result of PCLD Figure 16. The final layout of the PCLD

Figure 17. The A-weighted sound pressure at the reference point

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4. Conclusion
This paper investigates a plate-cavity coupling system for minimizing the sound pressure at
reference point under unit white noise excitations. The FE modal is built to simulate the coupling
system. A topology optimization approach is developed for structure-acoustic interaction between
the plate and the acoustic cavity. And experimental verification is carried out by manufacturing an
optimized PCLD that approximates the result obtained from the optimal simulation. Based on the
plate-cavity coupling system research, the minibus structure-acoustic coupling system NVH
performance is improved obviously, which proves that this method is useful and significant.

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