Identification of Swing Gate Seal Chucking using Predictive Methodologies and Test Correlation

For decades, customer complaints on Squeak & Rattle issues have come as a question of quality for the automotive industry. Squeak and rattle sounds are customer irritants due to their non-patterned and transient nature. Squeak is a friction induced noise that generally occurs because of rubbing of the two materials that are incompatible with each other. While rattle is a phenomenon that occurs due to the impact between the two parts having unintended gap. They are no more secondary noises and avoiding or elimination of these become significant for brand building and warranty cost reduction. Chucking is a form of squeak noise that occurs due to the interaction between uncoated seal to seal. In Swing gate, this phenomenon is seen when seal bulb inner layers are completely compressed. Swing gate have fore-aft modes that are excited due to dynamic responses from different road profiles. Traditional find and fix approach is time consuming and to reduce product development time, CAE methodologies are explored. This paper attempts to discuss about seal chucking in swing gate and its degradation. An implementable process in predicting the seal chucking during design phase is presented. Simulation studies were carried out by varying the seal stiffness and positioning the features like bump stop. The proposed method was effective in reduction of seal chucking. Physical measurements confirmed the reduction in relative motion with the proposed manufacturable solution. The test findings were in line with the CAE analysis. Recommendations for future swing gate design will be presented.