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Automotive industry combines simulation methods and domain expert knowledge to reduce noise pollution.

Engineers in the automotive industry are constantly working to design motor vehicles that are quieter, more efficient and more sustainable. Numerous components play a role in this process, for example mechanical engine parts that vibrate in different ways and generate structure-borne sound and thus noise through their vibrations. To solve the noise problem, multidimensional scenarios, complex system components and their interaction must be analyzed - a tedious and time-consuming process that requires the comparison of many static diagrams. In the high-tech automotive industry, which is working with increasingly large, complex and sometimes incomplete simulation data, this is becoming more and more challenging. Hundreds to thousands of parameters flow into the simulation and alone the development or design of an internal combustion engine. For humans, this is an almost unmanageable amount of data.

Identify noise sources

VRVis is a long-standing scientific partner of the Austrian company AVL List GmbH, which specializes in the development of powertrain systems. VRVis researchers explore methods of combining simulation, visualization and analysis into a unified workflow that helps industry and domain experts to quickly and intuitively access the information from the data that is most important for their work.

Visual Computing supports the automotive industry

The design of an engine is a complex technical process that must consider many variables - noise design is just one of many. Strict regulations on noise protection and acoustic comfort are in place to keep noise levels low. In NVH (Noise Vibration Harshness) analysis, all automotive parts are closely examined for their vibration capability. If it is too high, too much structure-borne sound is generated, resulting in noise. This is where the work of the engineering teams comes in: New ways must be found that dampen these vibrations or the individual parts must be designed differently in the first place. Based on VRVis' research in visual and simulation analytics, AVL List developed an interactive system with which engineering teams can now examine the complex data much more easily and efficiently, thereby quickly identifying the problematic components. This approach helps the industry address emerging and more stringent noise regulations more easily, but also shortens time-to-market. As a result, visual computing is helping make cars fit for the future, but above all, it makes them more user-friendly and considers the environment.