Exhaust system design has become a tricky job when analyzing the structural integrity of a marketable vehicle where its hot end components like catalytic converters are the most popular exhaust emission control devices. The T6 hot end exhaust model is modelled in FEM process where Hypermesh is used as a pre-processor, Abaqus as a solver. Shell and solid elements were utilized to provide better results in the modal frequency domain. The 3-point and 6-point engine excitation is considered towards the COG of the engine. Both Engine and gearbox control groups are coupled to the end of the roll axis nodes by RBE2 rigid elements, creating a boundary condition where the middle node of the roll axis is confined in all degrees of freedom, along with the input of Flex which is fixed in 3 degrees of freedom. The frequency response is determined for engine order 2 by the vibration amplitude of the exhaust system (displacement vs. frequency graph) for different locations on the hot end of the exhaust system to determine the peak frequencies of the base and optimized model. Further experimental tests were set up using an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) analyzer. The accelerometers were installed to recognize the excitation and the response points. The maximum displacement occurred at two peaks 187Hz and 211Hz at an amplitude of 0.19mm. Here MAC criteria and slope of displacement plots were 16% varying with that of the simulation data. Furthermore, tuning was performed to match the respective frequency and displacement values.
