A Study on NVH Performance Improvement of TPE Air Intake Hose Based on Optimization of Design and Material 2019-01-1491

Environmental and fuel economy regulations (Eu 6d and WLTP RDE) on automobiles have been tightened recently. To counter this regulation, the global automobile industry is focusing on weight reduction, fuel efficient turbo charger, cooled EGR, thermal management, low friction and so on. However, the high-speed turbocharger makes turbulence, and resulting in airflow noise. This noise is transmitted indoor through the air intake system, which adversely affects the vehicle's competitiveness. Therefore, for turbo engine, it is essential to reduce the noise of the air intake system. The air intake system consists of air cleaner, air filter, air intake hose and air duct. The air flow noise of turbo-engine is mainly the emission noise emitted from the walls of air intake system. And the transfer path of turbo noise is in order of air intake hose, air cleaner and air duct. Therefore, it is effective to reduce the noise of the air intake hose located at the beginning of noise transfer path. In the past, rubber hoses with vibration and acoustic insulation were mainly used to reduce the emission noise of air intake hose, but these can’t be recyclable and have high density (heavy). To overcome these shortcomings, TPE hoses are being applied, which are lighter, more competitive, durable and recyclable than rubber hoses. However, the air intake hoses with thin bellows and rigid TPE material have less noise attenuation performance than rubber hoses, so need to be improved noise insulation performance. This paper describes how to improve the NVH performance by optimizing the bellows design of air intake hose related to mass (m) and stiffness (k) and developing high damping material (c).