In an age when so many cars are designed to appeal to the many, Aston Martins are designed for the few. They are crafted for an exclusive club of motoring enthusiasts who share the spirit of the open road, who understand and feel the passion, and for whom assertive style blended with understated good taste are inherent values. Being responsible for the NVH performance of such a thoroughbred is the enviable task of Karen Gibson.“An Aston Martin should be an experience that lingers on the senses and in the mind, and the sound quality of the car ranks just as highly as its appearance or ride comfort”, observed Karen. “When developing target sound quality specifications for the DB7 Vantage we sent a CD around to a selection of Aston Martin Managers, Directors, test drivers and enthusiasts in order to get the sound just right.” The goal is to have an overall level that is comfortably within legislative requirements, but with a sporty roar during hard acceleration, a deep peaceful note during cruise, and not a trace of harshness at any time.” But in the pursuit of calculated perfection there is never a dull moment. Benchmarking competitive vehicles forms an enjoyable task, especially when a marque such as Ferrari is on the day’s schedule.
A few years ago, Karen joined the company to establish an NVH department with specific expertise in component matching and refinement of the overall vehicle. One of the first things she did was to invest in a multichannel LMS Roadrunner. “I chose the Roadrunner from my knowledge and experience of LMS as a company and the compatibility between the Roadrunner and Ford/Jaguar LMS CADA-X systems”, she commented.
Typically, field tests are usually performed in the rural lanes of Oxfordshire for low speed work and involve a wide open throttle acceleration in third or forth gear - any lower gear ratio would not allow sufficient acquisition time before speed limits were exceeded. Proving ground tests are performed for high speed tests, some of which exceed 150mph. “I find the Roadrunner very easy to use”, said Karen. “It has obviously been designed by engineers who needed to solve NVH problems in the field and are aware of the issues which may arise. It is especially useful to be able to collect the data and validate it myself before returning to the factory and carrying out more detailed analysis.”
Karen has found the Roadrunner useful for most of her every day duties, but there are times when she wishes she had more capability. She sees the next steps as being an increase in the number of channels and the addition of modal analysis software. However, being part of the Premier Automotive Group gives Karen access to considerable resources throughout the world. She can run analyses on Roadrunner data herself, or have other specialists perform an extended analysis. It’s an attractive vision of the future of collaborative engineering. Especially when you’re the one in the driving seat of an Aston Martin with nothing in front of you but the open road.
