Abstract:
This paper gives an overview of vehicle interior noise, its characteristics, and control methods. There is a wide variety of noise problems encountered in automobiles due to the sources involved and the range of operating conditions. Depending on these operating conditions, either airborne or structure-borne noise can be dominant. The complexities of automotive structures mean that a variety of analysis techniques needs to be applied to the problems, from the early design stage through to vehicle hardware development. These include both analytical and empirical methods. Examples are given of automotive airborne and structure-borne noise problems in a source, path, receiver framework. Source characteristics (tonal or broadband), problem frequencies, available analysis techniques, and practical solution methods are discussed. Solutions include quieting the source, using isolation at mounting points, and damping and trim materials in the vehicle interior. In practical terms, noise control solutions need to be balanced to comply with overall vehicle cost, mass, and other performance constraints.