Virtual Validation of Electric Vehicle NVH by Architecture Changes

As the technology is growing and the development of electric vehicles is advancing, though there are advancements in technology, an automobile will always have the challenges of Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH). With several years of study and research, various methodologies have been developed for the refinement of NVH in conventional vehicles (IC engines). But in terms of Battery Electric vehicles (BEV), we have new areas to explore to refine NVH. Currently, in the competitive market, developing a fully ground-up Electric vehicle (EV) is a challenge due to the aggressive product development timelines and high cost of development. As a result, many OEMs are considering converting their conventional existing vehicle to battery electric vehicles as they will need lesser product development timelines with their go-to-market strategy. This paper is focused on virtual NVH validations while converting an existing conventional vehicle body architecture to make it to a pure battery-operated electric vehicle architecture. This is accomplished by replacing the conventional powertrain systems and associated ancillary components with new power & energy systems on BEV. Architecture changes of the vehicle body need to be evaluated at various stages of vehicle development like BIW, trimbody & full vehicle as there may be a significant change in vibration transfers & noise transfers because of body mass and stiffness changes. A comparison is made between the conventional body architecture to the converted EV architecture for the change in the results. The structure-borne contributions from road input in BEV at full vehicle level are dominant, tactile & acoustic responses at driver location are evaluated & discussed in this paper.