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Once the design of a door sheetmetal and accessories is confirmed, the acoustics of the door system depends on the sound package assembly. This essentially consists of a watershield which acts as a barrier and a porous material which acts as an absorber. The acoustical performance of the watershield and the reverberant sound build-up in the door cavity control the performance. This paper discusses the findings of a design study that was developed based on design of experiments (DOE) concepts to determine which parameters of the door sound package assembly are important to the door acoustics. The study was based on conducting a minimum number of tests on a five factor - two level design that covered over 16 different design configurations. In addition, other measurements were made that aided in developing a SEA model which is also compared with the findings of the results of the design study.

Most of NVH related issues start from the vibration of structures where often the vibration near resonance frequencies radiates the energy in terms of sound. This phenomenon is more problematic at lower frequencies by structureborne excitation from powertrain or related components. This paper discusses a laboratory based case study where different visco-elastic materials were evaluated on a bench study and then carried on to a system level evaluation. A body panel with a glazing system was used to study both airborne and structureborne noise radiation. System level studies were carried out using experimental modal analysis to shift and tune the mode shapes of the structure using visco-elastic materials with appropriate damping properties to increase the sound transmission loss. This paper discusses the findings of the study where the mode shapes of the panel were shifted and resulted in an increase in sound transmission loss.

Advances in vehicle noise control are leading the automotive industry to place increasing emphasis on weatherseals to block exterior noise. As a result, properly evaluating the acoustical performance of automotive weatherseals is of increasing importance. There is no current specific standard for this testing. Rather, there has been reliance on adaptations of SAE Standard 51400 “Laboratory Measurement of the Airborne Sound Barrier Performance of Automotive Materials and Assemblies” by testing laboratories. However, the 51400 standard addresses testing of flatstock materials and does not readily lend application to pre-formed parts such as weatherseals. For this reason, adaptation of the standard can vary significantly from facility to facility and manufacturer to manufacturer. These differences can be significant and can render comparisons between test results on competing materials very difficult.

The purpose of this paper is to identify various concerns that need to be evaluated prior to the design and construction of a reverberation chamber, such that the chamber can be used for various automotive related acoustical measurements. Some of the concerns involve issues such as room shape and size, the degree of sound and vibration isolation required, the use of conventional building materials versus traditional massive construction, construction cost, and the performance requirements for the test noise generation system. Various uses of a reverberation chamber include random incidence sound absorption measurements, small sample sound transmission loss measurements, vehicle insertion loss tests, dash panel, door, and other “buck” evaluation tests, and sound power level measurements of small automotive components and devices. These uses have differing and in some cases conflicting requirements that compete in the selection of room design parameters.

Standards organizations develop standards depending on the need in the market place. With the change in vehicle design, lightweighting structures, and body panels made out of aluminum and composites, SAE’s Acoustical Materials Committee is developing a new damping standard. This standard is also very suitable in determining the damping performance of materials used in the off-highway applications, where the thickness of the steel body panel is much greater than in the automotive application. The general methodology of this standard is based on the mechanical impedance measurement method and has been developed with the general consensus of automotive engineers, suppliers, and independent test laboratories. This method is essentially based on the fact that a bar is excited at the center by a shaker. The force exerted by the shaker and the corresponding vibration is measured at that point to determine the frequency response function of the mechanical impedance signal.

Small reverberation rooms are used in common practice for determining random incidence sound absorption properties of flat materials and finished parts. Based on current small reverberation room usage in the automotive industry, there is a need for standardization that would bring about an appropriate level of consistency and repeatability. To respond to this need, a feasibility study is being pursued by an SAE task force, under the direction of the Acoustical Materials Committee, to develop a small volume reverberation room test method for conducting random incidence sound absorption tests. In addition to an accepted test method for small reverberation rooms, a data driven correlation that relates full size reverberation room absorption testing to small size reverberation room testing would be beneficial in understanding the usage of both. A Round Robin study has been underway for more than three years and will be completed in 2005.

Laminated steel body panels are used in different applications in vehicles, such as dash panels and wheel wells. A part made out of laminated steel has the potential to provide structure-borne noise reduction and also improve the airborne noise reduction of the part compared to a monolithic part. The use of laminated steel has been more critical when there are deep draws on the part as the deep draws cause localized resonances which degrade the acoustic performance significantly. However, due to lightweighting demands, hybrid laminated panels, commonly known as acoustic patch laminates have become very attractive. This paper discusses the damping and sound transmission loss performances of a dash panel part with monolithic, laminated, and acoustic patch panels.

Traditionally, the damping performance of a visco-elastic material is measured using the Oberst bar damping test, where a steel bar is excited using a non-contacting transducer. However, in an effort to reduce the weight of the vehicles, serious effort is put in to change the body panels from steel to aluminum and composite panels in many cases. These panels cannot be excited using a non-contacting transducer, although, in some cases, a very thin steel panel (shim) is glued to the vibrating bar to introduce ferrous properties to the bar so it can be excited. In the off highway vehicles, although the panels are made of steel, they are very thick and are difficult to excite using the Oberst bar test method. This paper discusses a measurement methodology based on mechanical impedance measurements and has the potential to be a viable/alternate test method to the Oberst bar testing. In the impedance method, the test bar is mounted to a shaker at the center (Center Point method).

This paper discusses the importance of a dissipative sound package system in the automotive industry and how it works. Although this is not a new technique at this stage, it is still a challenge to meet the subsystem target levels that were originally developed for parts based on the barrier decoupler concept. This paper reviews the typical construction of a dissipative system and then emphasizes the importance of different layers of materials that are used in the construction, including what they can do and cannot do. The paper also discusses the importance of the proper manufacturing of a part.

Liquid spray applied damping materials have potential advantages over conventional sheet damping materials in automotive body panel vibration applications. In order to understand the acoustical impact, a laboratory based NVH study was conducted to compare the damping and stiffness performance characteristics of various sprayable damping materials versus the production damping treatment. Based on this comparison, a criteria was developed to select potentially viable sprayable damping materials for vehicle testing. In-vehicle tests were also performed and compared to the laboratory findings to understand how well the results correlate. This paper discusses a criteria for selecting sprayable damping materials based on bench-top tests for vehicle applications, and the potential benefits of sprayable materials.