Technical Paper
Carpet Hybrid Foam Spacer: An Ultra-Absorbing Lightweight Floor Insulator
2016-06-15
2016-01-1851
The noise treatments weight reduction strategy, which consists in combining broadband absorption and insulation acoustic properties in order to reduce the weight of barriers, depends strongly on surface to volume ratio of the absorbing layers in the reception cavity. Indeed, lightweight technologies like the now classical Absorber /Barrier /Absorber layup are extremely efficient behind the Instrument Panel of a vehicle, but most of the time disappointing when applied as floor insulator behind the carpet. This work aims at showing that a minimum of 20 mm equivalent “shoddy” standard cotton felt absorption is requested for a floor carpet insulator, in order to be able to reduce the weight of barriers. This means that a pure absorbing system that would destroy completely the insulation properties and slopes can only work, if the noise sources are extremely low in this specific area, which is seldom the case even at the rear footwells location.
