Effect of Lightweight Design on the NVH Behavior of an Electric Vehicle Gearbox Housing

Noise and vibration emissions from electric vehicle gearboxes are greatly influenced by the properties of the gearbox housing. Reducing the weight of the housing requires to evaluate the impact of lightweight design on noise and vibration performance. In this paper, the effect of different rib arrangements on the noise and vibration performance of a lightweight transmission is investigated. The ribs allow to increase local stiffness while still reducing the total mass. The local stiffness is derived in different areas of the housing to determine potential areas of optimization. Then ribs on the surface of the gearbox housing in different arrangements and positions are applied to the model and their influence on the vibrational behaviour and acoustic emission are investigated numerically.