What is Source Contribution Analysis (or SCA)?

How do you measure the causes of a noise or vibration with respect to several sources? Which source is causing what part of the response?

For example, how does the noise inside the cabin of a vehicle relate to the engine noise or wheel hub noise and vibration?

If the goal is to analyse how the vibration of an engine and the vibration from several other sources, for example each wheel hub, effects the noise in the cabin.

Fullscreen capture 26062012 124954.bmp — Some example results from SCA

Source Contribution Analysis will break down the inputs or sources and compare each to the output or response. Thus it is possible to visualise which sources cause what part of the response.

Further SCA can be used in any situation where you have the following,

Measured response, either microphone or accelerometer.
Measured sources, many different sources and you have no idea which source is contributing to the response. The souces must be independent, for example not two accelerometers in the same location.

SCA will tell you which sources contribute most to the response at each frequency.

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James Wren

Former Sales & Marketing Manager at Prosig

James Wren was Sales & Marketing Manager for Prosig Ltd until 2019. James graduated from Portsmouth University in 2001, with a Masters degree in Electronic Engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer and a registered Eur Ing. He has been involved with motorsport from a very early age with a special interest in data acquisition. James is a founder member of the Dalmeny Racing team.