Next week Wednesday (November 12) the Ford Motor Company will fly Calvin College engineering professor Richard De Jong and two of his senior engineering students to Atlanta for two days of noise testing on a Ford Taurus at the Lockheed Wind Tunnel -- one of the largest wind tunnels in North America.

The trip is the latest step in a seven-year journey for Ford and Calvin.

When De Jong came to Calvin in 1987 from Cambridge Collaborative, Inc. in Boston -- an acoustics and vibration consulting company for whom he worked for 11 years -- he brought with him years of expertise in high frequency noise and vibration analysis and audio prediction. That expertise includes a doctorate from MIT in mechanical engineering, with an acoustics and vibration specialty, and a computer software package that he helped develop called SEAM (Statistical Energy Analysis Modeling), based on a dynamical modeling technique developed in the 1960s at MIT by De Jong's graduate thesis advisor.

Soon after returning to Calvin, De Jong, a Grand Rapids native and Calvin graduate, began working with local companies interested in noise and vibration analysis. In 1990 he did a seminar at Ford; in 1992 he spent a week teaching their engineers how to use tools such as SEAM. And in 1994 he earned a contract for a summer project for himself and two students. The summers of 1995, 1996 and 1997 saw continued projects for De Jong and Calvin students.

This past summer De Jong and seniors-to-be Todd Remtema, of Caledonia, and Chetan Paydenkar, of Bangalore, India, did noise analysis on a rented Ford Taurus, setting up an "outdoor lab" in the parking lot west of the Calvin Science Building. Calvin engineering professor Gayle Ermer also assisted in the work.

The students performed various noise tests on the Taurus. In one they set up a loudspeaker on the ground to duplicate road noise.

They then took measurements of the interior noise levels under various conditions, including one scenario in which the door seals were sealed even tighter with good, old-fashioned duct tape. All of that information was fed into the computer and will be used to model and predict future such tests.

The work was significant enough that Ford decided to duplicate much of it next week in Atlanta -- in a wind tunnel that De Jong terms "an absolutely fantastic facility, designed to do noise tests" -- and fly De Jong, Remtema and Paydenkar to coordinate those tests.

De Jong says the work is important to Ford because the company -- like the rest of the auto industry -- is trying to get to a point where it can do all of its first prototypes on computer. Developing consistent and predictable computer software now may eventually allow that to happen.

"Our work," De Jong says, "is to validate and verify that in fact the computer software we have works. We use the exisiting vehicle to perform tests and gain confidence. The theory is that some day you won't need the first vehicle prototype; you'll simply use the computer."

De Jong says Calvin's new $1 million engineering projects lab -- part of a recently approved $22 million science project on campus -- will be a huge benefit to his work, and that of other Calvin engineering professors and students.

"It became clear this summer," he says, "that we needed a projects lab. For the two weeks that we ran our tests outside we prayed for no rain. We couldn't do the tests inside because we didn't have the room. So we were forced outside. That, obviously, is not an ideal situation. The new projects lab will allow us to work inside, on campus. It will be a big plus."

De Jong says the new lab also will enhance the credibility of Calvin with companies such as Ford.
"Ford, and others," he says, "already are impressed with our people power. They consistently say to me: ‘Wow, these are undergraduates?' They are amazed by the intellectual resources we offer. But our physical resources sometimes put us at a disadvantage, particularly when compared to some of the Big 10 schools like Purdue."
The fact that Calvin is located in Michigan and just two hours or so from Detroit also makes it attractive to companies such as

Ford. And the plethora of automotive related businesses in Grand Rapids provides another connection.
"It's a nice arrangment all the way around," says De Jong. "It's a particular benefit for our students who are gaining significant real-world experience because of such partnerships."