How can acoustic analysis software help in designing quieter products?

Acoustic analysis software helps in designing quieter products by allowing engineers to simulate and optimize sound generation, propagation, and transmission paths . It identifies noise sources, predicts sound levels, and guides the design of effective noise reduction measures such as acoustic materials, insulation, and structural modifications.

What industries commonly use acoustic analysis software?

Acoustic analysis software is commonly used in the following industries: Transportation & Mobility : For designing quieter vehicles, optimizing engine and exhaust noise, and improving cabin acoustics. Aerospace & Defense : To reduce aircraft noise emissions, analyze interior noise levels, and improve passenger comfort. Architecture, Engineering and Construction : For designing sound insulation in buildings, optimizing room acoustics, and mitigating noise pollution. Cities and Public Services : For assessing noise impacts near industrial facilities, transportation routes, and urban developments.

PowerACOUSTICS

Design Quieter Products

PowerACOUSTICS® is the leader in digital acoustic and aeroacoustic solutions for applications including cars, heavy equipment, trains, and aircraft. When coupled with PowerFLOW, PowerACOUSTICS provides visual insight into acoustic and aeroacoustic capabilities through extensive noise-quality testing. It enables you to identify noise sources and provides insight into how design adjustments affect noise output so you can optimize prototypes. To improve noise performance, PowerACOUSTICS can certify that machinery conforms to noise-level regulations and requirements.

Features & Benefits
Key Capabilities

Features & Benefits of PowerACOUSTICS

Digital prototyping and virtual measurement

PowerFLOW coupled with PowerACOUSTICS modules gives access to digital acoustic and aeroacoustic facilities which are cost-effective. This solution provides enhanced capabilities through detailed visual insight into how design details and changes impact the noise levels and quality. Noise can be considered at an early design stage and issues quickly identified and resolved, rather than being a late afterthought where mitigation is time-consuming and expensive.

Evaluating noise quality

Design alternatives can be compared using audio signal synthesis. Instead of looking only at plots and graphs with eyes, noise can be analyzed directly with ears. This analysis method helps both acoustic engineers and non-experts to get a better perception of the noise quality and evaluate the importance of design modifications.

Matching noise regulations

Assess acoustic performance of cars, heavy equipment, trains or aircraft against regulatory requirements to improve the ability to design products that pass physical tests the first time.

Seeing noise sources

Identifying the origin of noise issues is complex, requiring time and expertise. PowerACOUSTICS FIND module gives simple access to this knowledge by pinpointing noise areas inside or outside the system and drives the design optimization.

Key Capabilities of PowerACOUSTICS

Full-featured temporal and Fourier space signal processing

Complete and advanced analyses of transient results on probes, rakes, surfaces and fluids in time and frequency domains.
Evaluate noise metrics, cross-correlation, coherence and dozens of advanced quantities.

2-D and 3-D filtering operations

Highlight sources of problems at specific frequencies by creating, for instance, band-filtered animations.
Extract hidden acoustic fields from turbulent regions using the Acoustic Wavenumber Filter (AWF) technique.

Communication of results

Generate audio signals to better evaluate quality and designs.
Visualize 3-D images and animations with PowerVIZ® including realistic rendering capabilities to better connect physical mechanisms to geometry details.

Interior wind noise modeling

Predict noise spectra at the occupant’s head generated by exterior wind noise transmitting through the vehicle structure.
Include turbulent and acoustic contributions produced by the exterior wind noise excitations.
A fully integrated solution including validated and tailorable vehicle cabin templates handled with an embedded Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) solver.
Ability to export panel contributions to third-party SEA solvers to leverage output results into in-house NVH processes.

Interior wind noise quality evaluation

Play the wind noise contributions inside the cabin and evaluate the importance of the human ear’s positions.
Derive noise metrics such dB, dBA, sones, or Articulation Index (AI) to evaluate the noise quality.
Analysis methods for contributions from greenhouse and underbody panels and seals.
Ability to import non-simulated noise contributions obtained from acoustic testing such as road, tire and engine noises.

Design & sound package parameter studies

Evaluate and compare the performances of different side mirrors, A-pillars, hoods and appendages designs.
Evaluate the relative importance of each noise contributor to target the main problems.
Set up and vary panels and cabin properties to evaluate the impact on interior noise levels.
Quantify the effect of changes to panels and interior absorption properties.

Reliable & validated acoustic analysis solution

The PowerACOUSTICS best practices for exterior wind noise combined with its noise transmission module have been validated extensively.
Users can confidently rely on the accuracy and robustness of the acoustic analysis methods to generate results that help develop quieter vehicles.

Far-field noise predictions

Noise can be evaluated as far as needed from the sources going beyond PowerFLOW simulation domains.
Leverage a fully coupled far-field noise solver based on the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) acoustic analogy.
Evaluate ground reflections and absorption effects based on source image formulation.

Predictions of fly-over, pass-by & wind tunnel configurations

Predict noise from landing planes and gears, passing-by trains or construction equipment.
Solid and permeable surface formulations are available using solid or virtual surfaces as inputs.

Access to noise & digital certification metrics.

FAA, ISO, and DIN standard procedures can be applied to FFN pressure signals.

Insight into noise source locations

Perform contribution acoustic analysis from any source region.
Output far-field microphone signals can be plugged into inverse methods algorithms to locate noise sources.

Intuitive & easy-to-use aeroacoustics design tool

Identify and quantify broadband flow noise sources in or around any geometries.
Guide engineers to the most important issues to efficiently reduce noise levels.

3-D acoustic sources visualization & clustering

Spatial representation of noise source field with PowerVIZ including realistic rendering capabilities.
Clustering of noise sources to identify individual source regions.

Prioritize candidate design features to be optimized

Identify geometry details responsible for noise by connecting sources to geometry failures.
Source acoustics power can be used as objective functions to drive optimization studies.