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The automobile's interior acoustic treatment must provide sufficient sound absorption to enhance the conversational ability between the vehicle's occupants under all driving conditions. Addressing this increasingly important customer driven requirement becomes even more challenging in larger vehicles like minivans. Several factors affect clear conversation (Speech Intelligibility) and include: the reverberation/absorption characteristics of the environment and the type and intensity of ambient noise. This paper discusses the effects of major interior trim components on the reverberation characteristics of a minivan interior environment and their impact on speech intelligibility. Among interior trim components, seats have been found to be the major contributor to a vehicle's interior sound absorption. Various component and in-vehicle test results are presented to exemplify the effects of seat constructions on speech intelligibility.

Optimization of component/system sound absorption can account for improvements in interior automotive sound quality. Components such as headliners, seats, etc., account for a large portion of a vehicle's available interior surface area and can provide significant sound absorption and thus improve sound quality if their sound absorption potentials are considered. In this paper, the authors attempt to convey a proper understanding of component absorption and its place in a vehicle interior system. The relation between sound absorption and component airflow resistance is discussed., and it is also shown that the processings for absorption materials have to be carefully designed. In order to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the absorption treatments, a reliable method for determining interior automotive reverberation times is reviewed.