Automotive Squeak and Rattle Prevention

Recent advances in automotive sound quality have reduced the general level of noise in the passenger compartment and focused more attention on irritating noises. Traditional methods of prevention and elimination of irritating noises such as squeaks and rattles are no longer sufficient to develop acceptable products in shortened product development cycles. Basic causes, design rules for prevention, and evaluation techniques using integrated digital data acquisition, laboratory simulation, acoustic and modal analysis techniques have been successfully developed to push the prevention process upstream in the development cycle.