Meta Design: Next Level of Acoustic Insulation in Automotive Industry 2024-01-2934

Meta material has been known for many years and the physics are well known since decades. But the challenge has always been to put the know how into (mass) production. This was the reason why no meta material has found its way into the automotive industry so far. But now things have changed: meta material became Meta Design and is going into serial production in 2024. Meta Design is a tunable spring mass system with foam acting as the spring and heavy layer as the mass. Meta Design is characterized by cavities in the foam and concentrated masses of the heavy layer as functionalized mass pins. By tuning the size of the cavities and the weight of the mass pins the acoustic performance can be adjusted to the requirements of each individual car line. After preliminary simulations, flat samples were tested in the lab. The next step was launched: the production and testing of a handmade prototype part of a firewall insulation for a Mercedes-Benz A-Class. The results of the tests were again very promising and led to the serial development of Meta Design in the next compact car line of Mercedes-Benz. It was proven that Meta Design has the potential to improve the acoustic performance of a spring mass insulation system, in particular in transmission loss and therefore offers the potential for significant weight reduction in the car of up to 25%. The weight reduction is possible without compromising on transmission loss.