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In recent years several variants of lightweight multi-layered acoustic treatments have been used successfully in vehicles to replace conventional barrier-decoupler interior dash mats. The principle involved is to utilize increased acoustic absorption to offset the decrease in insertion loss from the reduced mass such that equivalent vehicle level performance can be achieved. Typical dual density fibrous constructions consist of a relatively dense cap layer on top of a lofted layer. The density and flow resistivity of these layers are tuned to optimize a balance of insertion loss and absorption performance. Generally these have been found to be very effective with the exception of dash mats with very high insertion loss requirements. This paper describes an alternative treatment which consists of a micro-perforated film top layer and fibrous decoupler layer.

Flat, constant thickness composites that consisted of a microperforated top layer plus a fibrous decoupler layer were tested for random absorption and transmission loss (TL) performance. The top, microperforated layer consisted of a relatively thick film that contained small, precise micro-perforations. For reference, top layers that consisted of a resistive scrim and an impervious film were also included in this study. Two fibrous materials of constant thickness were used for the decoupler layer between a steel panel and the top microperforated film. The composites' absorption and TL performance were also modeled using the well-known transfer matrix method. This method has been implemented in a commercially available statistical energy analysis (SEA) software package. A comparison of testing and modeling results showed reasonable agreement for absorption results and even better agreement for transmission loss and insertion loss results.