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Cabin acoustic comfort is a major contributor to the potential sales success of new aircraft, cars, trucks, and trains. Recent design challenges have included the increased use of composites, and the switch to electrically powered vehicles, each of which change the interior noise spectral content and level. The role of acoustic absorption in cabins is key to the optimisation of cabin acoustic comfort for modern vehicles, with acoustic impedance data needed in order to assess and optimise the impact of each component of a given lay-up. Measurements of absorbing interior trim are traditionally performed using either sample holder tests in a static impedance tube (impedance and absorption), or through tests in reverberation rooms (absorption only). Both of these procedures present challenges. In-tube absorption and impedance measurements are destructive, requiring highly accurate sample cutting and sealing.

Acoustic material testing is becoming increasingly relevant to engineers, designers and manufacturers from a broad range of industries. This paper presents comparisons between material absorption measurements made using the traditional approaches of the reverberation room method and the fixed impedance tube using a sample holder, with those obtained using a lightweight portable flanged impedance tube method. The portable tube allows fast non-destructive in-situ material measurements. It may therefore be used to measure the impact of the installed lay-up (e.g. effects of facing sheets, curvature, material compression, bagging, etc.). Results are presented for both non-locally reacting and locally reacting materials. The flanged tube results are compared directly with in-tube data. They are also corrected for random incidence to allow comparison with the diffuse field reverberation room data.

Farfield beamforming is a powerful tool for identifying spatially distributed noise sources. The technique yields an image of the relative sound levels within the measurement aperture. The latest version of the beamforming software is now able to estimate the total power within its measurement aperture. In this work, the noise sources on three types of construction equipment are imaged with a beamforming array, while simultaneously the radiated sound powers are determined by a six-microphone hemisphere per ISO 6393 or ISO 6395. Of particular interest are: noise induced by turbulent flow at the exit of an exhaust stack, the effect of a noise reduction package in the engine compartment, and crawler track noise during motion. The absolute levels of the mapped source regions are compared with the total radiated sound power.

Motorhomes or recreational vehicles (RV's) are unique vehicles in that they pose many interesting design challenges to acoustical engineers. This type of vehicle has many of the typical NVH (Noise Vibration and Harshness) issues seen in passenger cars and heavy trucks; however, there is an entire arena of NVH issues that are not seen in these other products. The issues are not present in these other markets; because a motorhome, not only serves as a means of transportation, it also serves in a secondary role as a home. The dual role of the coach creates many residential noise concerns. Some of these issues include managing generator sound levels while the coach is either parked in a campsite or on road, controlling engine noise levels for designs where the bed serves as the engine cover, and controlling wind noise to improve speech communication between the driver and passengers. Complicating these issues is the fact that each unit is semi-customized.