SOLUTIONS CASE STUDY
By Peter G. Lynde, PE
Mercury Marine builds innovative acoustic testing facility Mercury Marine commissioned Albert Kahn Associates to design and engineer a new noise, vibration and harshness test facility
W
hen an industry leader in the marine segment decided it needed a worthy noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) test facility — one that exceeded product development goals across a broad range of products — engineers at Mercury Marine quickly learned that designing a state-of-the-art facility to satisfy rigid acoustic noise and vibration criteria and facilitate collaboration among product development and engineering staff would not be easy. Rather, the new facility had to overcome several challenges: • Undesirable low -frequency vibration levels from heavy vehicle traffic on nearby interstate highways, as well as snowplow activity in campus parking lots. • The same traffic, together with construction activity, facility service access roads and truck docks and small aircraft or helicopter flyovers created unpredictable, unavoidable exterior noise events that could impact the indoor test environment. • An unprecedented level of flexibility was needed to accommodate the entire Brunswick product line — test sources with a wide range of physical sizes and sound level signatures.
Establishing ground truth
The hemi-anechoic Plant 12 Sound Lab, located at the Mercury Marine PD&E
Center in Fond du Lac, WI, had served Mercury Marine well for more than a decade. It was a cornerstone of the company’s leadership in NVH testing and development of marine products, particularly outboard and sterndrive motors. However, its use had become limited due to the relentless evolution of product technology and motor horsepower. To improve the NVH quality of its prop-to-helm marine propulsion solutions and test its future product mix, Mercury Marine commissioned Albert Kahn Associates (Kahn) to design and engineer a new NVH test facility. The new facility needed to consolidate NVH testing and support areas to optimize team efficiency and promote collaboration between product development and engineering teams. Support areas are located around the test chambers with space for engineers and technicians to comfortably perform various duties. Nearby, a larger office space was incorporated with floor-toceiling windows, infusing a combination of workstations and an open collaborative area with natural light. Both owner and design team needed to visualize the facility’s many complex interrelationships, including both interior and exterior factors. To do this, Kahn engineers employed Revit and Revit 3D MEP modeling software to accurately coordinate and integrate building systems and easily create isometric views (see Figure 1). In addition, visualization tools such as Revit Live and Google Cardboard were used to create flythroughs and simulate the building’s interior and exterior in virtual reality (see Figure 2). Marine product testing must replicate the open water environment to best simulate real world NVH characteristics. To do this successfully, the test envi-
Figure 1: Isometric view from Revit Model. Kahn engineers used Revit and Revit 3D MEP modeling software to create isometric views. Courtesy: Albert Kahn Associates Inc.
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• March 2021
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