Numerical and Experimental Analysis of the Effect of Acoustic Loads on the Source Characterization for an Internal Combustion Engine Exhaust System

The identification of source characteristics, commonly characterized as the source strength and source impedance, is essential for predicting the acoustic performance of an internal combustion (IC) engine exhaust system. This study contributes to a theoretical analysis of the effect of the acoustic parameters of loads (i.e., four-pole parameters, load impedance, and radiation impedance of the tailpipe) on the identification error of the source characteristics for an IC engine. A model based on the linear time-invariant hypothesis was constructed. A dispersion estimation function of the source strength and a deviation estimation function of the source impedance were established as indicators to test the identification accuracy. A three-dimensional (3D) multifield coupling numerical simulation method, which can thoroughly consider the influences of airflow and temperature, was applied to obtain the acoustic parameters of loads and compare them with those obtained by a one-dimensional (1D) analytical method. Then, the acoustic parameters of loads and the radiated sound pressure level of the tailpipe obtained in the measurement were substituted into the source characteristics identification model. Based on the analysis and calculation, the estimated error of the source characteristics acquired by using the 3D numerical simulation method is significantly lower than that by using the 1D analytical method. Moreover, the experiment and the 3D multifield coupling numerical simulation method were used to verify the identification results of the engine source characteristics. The results show that the far-field sound pressure level of the tailpipe predicted via the 3D numerical simulation method agrees well with the experimental results, indicating that accurate acoustic parameters of loads can effectively improve the source identification accuracy for an IC engine.