Effect of automobile operating condition on the subjective equivalence of steering wheel vibration and sound

Abstract

For the manufacturers of automobiles, automobile components and fuels, subjective equivalence relationships between vibration and sound can be used as a reference against which to plot the results from simulations or tests of specific operational conditions. The research described here was performed to define curves of subjective equivalence between steering wheel rotational vibration and sound using stimuli from different automobile operating conditions. The steering wheel acceleration stimuli were summarised in terms of the unweighted and Wh weighted r.m.s. values, while the sound stimuli were summarised in terms of the unweighted SPL in decibels, the A-weighted SPL in decibels, the Stevens Mark VI loudness in sones, the Stevens Mark VII loudness in sones and the Zwicker loudness in sones. The results suggest that both the statistical properties of the stimuli, and the choice of metric, effect the shape of the equivalence curve. No single combination of vibration and sound metric produced a family of curves which were separated by less than a single psychophysical just noticeable difference.