Squeak and Rattle Prediction for Robust Product Development in the automotive industry

Doctoral thesis, 2021

Squeak and rattle are nonstationary, irregular, and impulsive sounds that are audible inside the car cabin. For decades, customer complaints about squeak and rattle have been, and still are, among the top quality issues in the automotive industry. These annoying sounds are perceived as quality defect indications and burden warranty costs to the car manufacturers. Today, the quality improvements regarding the persistent type of sounds in the car, as well as the increasing popularity of electric engines, as green and quiet propulsion solutions, stress the necessity for attenuating annoying sounds like squeak and rattle more than in the past. The economical and robust solutions to this problem are to be sought in the pre-design-freeze phases of the product development and by employing design-concept-related practices. To achieve this goal, prediction and evaluation tools and methods are required to deal with the squeak and rattle quality issues upfront in the product development process.

The available tools and methods for the prediction of squeak and rattle sounds in the pre-design-freeze phases of a car development process are not yet sufficiently mature. The complexity of the squeak and rattle events, the existing knowledge gap about the mechanisms behind the squeak and rattle sounds, the lack of accurate simulation and post-processing methods, as well as the computational cost of complex simulations are some of the significant hurdles in this immaturity. This research addresses this problem by identifying a framework for the prediction of squeak and rattle sounds based on a cause-and-effect diagram. The main domains and the elements and the sub-contributors to the problem in each domain within this framework are determined through literature studies, field explorations and descriptive studies conducted on the subject. Further, improvement suggestions for the squeak and rattle evaluation and prediction methods are proposed through prescriptive studies. The applications of some of the proposed methods in the automotive industry are demonstrated and examined in industrial problems.

The outcome of this study enhances the understanding of some of the parameters engaged in the squeak and rattle generation. Simulation methods are proposed to actively involve the contributing factors studied in this work for squeak and rattle risk evaluation. To enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the risk evaluation process, methods were investigated and proposed for the system excitation efficiency, modelling accuracy and efficiency and quantification of the response in the time and frequency domains. The demonstrated simulation methods besides the improved understanding of the mechanisms behind the phenomenon can facilitate a more accurate and robust prediction of squeak and rattle risk during the pre-design-freeze stages of the car development.