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Liquid applied sound deadener (LASD) is a light-weight, targeted vibration damping treatment traditionally used in the automotive market for body-in-white (BIW) panels. Water-based LASDs may cure over a wide range of conditions from room temperature to over 200°C. However, curing conditions commonly affect change in the damping characteristics. A thorough understanding of the relationship between curing conditions and subsequent damping performances will inform the material selection process and may allow pre-manufacturing designs to be adjusted with limited impact during validation. This paper aims to strengthen the quantitative understanding of the role LASD curing conditions have on damping performance by observing the effects of variations in thickness and cure temperature as measured by the Oberst method.

Both vehicle roof systems and vehicle door systems typically have viscoelastic material between the beams and the outer panel. These materials have the propensity to affect the vibration decay time and the vibration level of the panel with their damping and stiffening properties. Decay time relates to how pleasant a vehicle door sounds upon closing, and vibration level relates to how loud a roof boom noise may be perceived to be by vehicle occupants. If a surrogate panel could be used to evaluate decay time and vibration level, then a design of experiments (DOE) could be used to compare the effects of different factors on the system. The purpose of this paper is to show the effect of varying test factors on decay time and vibration level on a panel-beam system with viscoelastic material applied. The results were calculated using DOE software, and they were used to construct optimized systems for validation testing.

The excitation of structural modes of vehicle roofs due to structure-borne excitations from the road and powertrain can generate boom and noise issues inside the passenger cabin. The use of elastomeric foams between the roof bows and roof panel can provide significant damping to the roof and reduce the vibration. If computer-aided engineering (CAE) can be used to predict the effect of elastomeric foams accurately on vibration and noise, then it would be possible to optimize the properties and placement of foam materials on the roof to attenuate vibration. The properties of the different foam materials were characterized in laboratory tests and then applied to a flat test panel and a vehicle body-in-white. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the testing and CAE analysis of the vibration and radiated sound power of flat steel panels and the roof from the BIW of an SUV with anti-flutter foam and Terophon® high damping foam (HDF) materials.