Characterisation of an airborne sound source for use in a virtual acoustic prototype

An approach is outlined suitable for constructing ‘virtual acoustic prototypes’ of machines. Here, the machine is ‘sub-structured’ into: active components (vibro-acoustic sources), and frame (the remaining passive parts of the machine). The approach is validated using the illustrative example of an electric motor installed in a machine frame. The motor is characterised by a line of four monopoles on its axis, the complex source strengths for which are obtained from the measured anechoic sound field around the motor using an inverse method. A singular value decomposition is carried out both to aid the solution and to shed light on the dominant mechanisms. A set of compatible transfer functions of a machine frame is then measured using a reciprocal technique. The sound power of the assembled machine is then predicted using a ‘virtual prototype’ approach of combining motor and frame data in the computer. Reasonable agreement is obtained with measurements made on a real prototype, although the agreement was limited at least in part by difficulties in repeating the same operating conditions for the motor. A simplified characterisation, using a single monopole, and with improved motor control produced excellent agreement.