Cabin tractor acoustic design at mid-high frequency by Statistical Energy Analysis

The wide diffusion of tractors in the agricultural industry imposes the development of vehicles able to respect market and legislative requirements about the noise and the vibration environment for the operator. One of the most validated techniques to predict the vibroacoustic level at mid and high frequency is the Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA). This numerical technique is based on an energy balance between mechanical systems and avoids describing the studied system by a large number of degrees of freedom. SEA methodology is appropriate to design a cabin in order to achieve fixed target on vibrations and noise amplitude. This paper introduces a methodology, based on SEA and verified on a cabin tractor prototype, to identify the most significant vibroacoustic transmission paths and to optimize the structure in order to limit the structural response and the internal noise levels.