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Driven by global pressures of weight reduction and cost savings, suppliers of specialty sealing and bonding products to the automotive industry have responded by expanding the focus of their product development activities. OEM engineering practices have brought about significant changes within the specialty sealing and bonding supply base. The successful suppliers in this market have responded to these pressures and initiated changes in the processes through which their materials are developed and released into production. In an industry historically populated by chemists and manufacturing process engineers, new requirements have led to an increase in application engineers and technical specialists, providing the necessary vehicle development expertise to the sealant industry. To support these expanded roles, new research and development facilities and associated advanced technologies have become a critical requirement.

Cavity reinforcement materials are used in the automotive industry to stiffen hollow cavities in vehicle body constructions. Typical areas of use include the engine rails, rocker panels, roof support or any other cavity in need of structural reinforcement. Use of these materials can allow for significant reductions in vehicle weight and increase structural stiffness with minimal impact to production tooling. Additional benefits can be gained by using the material as a physical barrier to the propagation of noise, water and dust. The objective of this paper is to describe a case study which implemented a new type of cavity reinforcing material to improve low frequency vehicle noise and vibration characteristics.

Chemically and heat reactive, expandable sealants are used as “acoustical baffles” in the automotive industry. These acoustic baffles are used to impede noise, water and dust propagation inside of structural components and body cavities. Use of these sealant materials has grown significantly as the demands to improve vehicle acoustic performance has increased. Various test methods have been developed to quantify the performance of these materials through direct comparison of material samples. These investigations use standardized testing procedures to characterize the acoustic performance of a material sample on the basis of controlled laboratory test conditions. This paper presents a step in the progression of evaluating acoustic baffle performance in the vehicle. Standard experimental techniques are used to investigate the influence of the baffles on the vehicle acoustic performance.