In search for quieter engines there is a need for a better understanding of the acoustic properties of engine intake and exhaust system components. Besides mufflers which have the purpose of reducing pressure pulses originating from the internal combustion (IC) engine, there are many components in a modern car exhaust and intake system, e.g., air-filters, coolers, catalytic converters, particulate filters - all having an effect on the pressure pulses or sound field in the system. In this work the focus is on the turbocharged IC-engine where both, sound scattering (reflection and transmission) and sound generation from automotive turbochargers are studied. In addition, sound reflection from an open ended pipe, such as the tailpipe of an IC-engine exhaust is investigated.             Accurate and efficient methods to fully characterize turbochargers by measuring the acoustic two-port have been developed.  Compared to earlier work, a number of modifications are suggested for improving the quality of the results. A study on three different automotive turbochargers is also presented, including data for sound scattering for both the compressor and turbine. The results for the transmission of sound, which is of interest for the ability of a turbocharger to reduce noise coming from the engine, is plotted for all tested cases against a dimensionless frequency scale (Helmholtz-number). This makes it possible to generalize the result in order to draw conclusions about the behavior for any turbocharger.              The sound generation was also studied and three different methods to estimate the sound power are suggested. The methods were used to investigate sound generation at different operating points and identify source mechanisms for a turbocharger compressor.             An accurate method for measuring the reflection of plane acoustic waves from a pipe termination in a duct with hot gas flow has been developed and tested. Representing the acoustical conditions at an exhaust tail-pipe, the data obtained is important for effective modeling of exhaust systems. The experimental results of the reflection coefficient were compared with Munt`s theory on flow duct openings. The measurements were carried out for air jet velocities up to Mach 0.4 and for flow temperatures up to 100°C in order to study temperature effects on the reflection properties. It was concluded, that the experimental results agree well with the Munt theory.

A number of experimental and theoretical studies, performed in the field of technical flow duct acoustics are presented in this thesis. The acoustical methods treated are implemented on turbocharged IC-engines and engine gas exchange system components. A new method based on the well-known two-load technique has been developed. The method was applied to characterise the source data of various piston-engines with non-linear behaviour including a 6 cylinder turbo-charged truck diesel engine. The source characterisation results were compared to the results obtained using the linear two-load technique. It was demonstrated that the new non-linear multi-load technique gives improved results when the source is slightly non-linear. The use of active one-port models has been tested to characterize an air terminal device (ATD) as a source of flow generated noise. In order to predict the noise generation at different operating points of the device a scaling law was derived and verified. In the experimentally derived scaling law a flow speed dependence of 3 was found for the narrow band spectra, corresponding to a dipole-like behavior of the source in the plane wave range. The proposed technique was validated successfully and the results indicated a good prediction of in-duct sound generation by the air terminal device. Sound reflection from hot flow duct openings has been investigated experimentally. The reflection coefficient was measured for flow temperatures up to 500 ºC and jet velocities up to 108m/s. The results have been compared with famous Munt’s theory. It was concluded that at low Mach number and Helmholz number cases the results agree well with the Munt’s model. This was the first experimental validation of the theory for hot flow conditions. Experimental procedures to determine the sound transmission through automotive turbo-charger compressors were developed and described in detail. An overview of a unique turbocharger testing facility established at KTH CICERO in Stockholm is given. The facility can be used to measure acoustic two-port data for turbo-compressors. Results from measurements on a passenger car turbo-compressor are presented and the influence of operating conditions on the sound transmission is discussed. Current wave action models developed in CMT for computation of the gas exchange processes in I.C. engines have been implemented to determine the acoustic wave transmission through the turbo- compressor. The models are validated with the experimental data and the results are presented for different operating conditions of a Volvo passenger car turbo-compressor. / QC 20100809