The acoustic comfort inside the vehicle justifies important attention during its development phase, because customers desire a quiet interior to have a more relaxing environment, easier to have conversations and to listen to the radio.
Generally, acoustic insulators are distributed on vehicle body to minimize the portion of noise that enters the vehicle and, in the interior, absorber components are used to reduce the cabin noise reverberation. Internal noise absorption is mainly performed by headliners, carpets and seats.
In order to contribute to the sound absorption inside the vehicle made through the seats and to propose a foam and fabric configuration that demonstrates the best acoustic performance, this work aims to compare combinations of three different foam densities with eight different fabrics using the Kundt´s tube. The idea is to understand the influences of the foam and fabric characteristics on the seat noise absorption performance and, balanced with seat performance requirements, such as safety, durability, comfort and others, propose the best scenario for seat contribution of interior noise absorption.
The foam densities and fabrics were selected based on current production vehicles from different segments in order to consider a good range for testing both materials, and the best scenario identified by the comparison shall be evaluated in vehicle scale prior to implementation in a next new project.