Sound Knowledge 

Bus and Coach Noise Reduction Specialist

“With Electric Vehicles it’s all about the whines and whirrs; it’s much more about the sound quality” –  Mark Simms

As we continue to celebrate our 50th anniversary this year, we would like to share some of our expertise in commercial vehicle noise reduction, and our experience in tackling the challenge of reducing unwanted sound on vehicles in general, having worked with manufacturers of almost all commercial vehicles types.   In the bus and coach sector this work has been orientated towards reducing the noise of Diesel engines, but more recently there has been a more significant shift towards dealing with electric vehicles which have their own separate challenges with noise.

The core principal’s behind Ventac’s work is that we try to understand the noise path, and treat the noise at source.  There are two basic forms of noise that we encounter: structure-borne noise and engine-borne noise.  Structure-borne noise tends to be vibration based, and engine-borne noise tends to be higher-frequency noise.  Here at Ventac we develop effective solutions that work in the environment of the vehicle to deal with things like the temperatures, the dirt sloshing from the road, the oil, the potential diesel-leaks, and the fire requirements.  We use the likes of liners and other noise treatments.

Acoustics Laboratory 

To develop these noise reduction packages, we have an acoustics laboratory which has reverberation chambers for testing multiple configurations of materials for these solutions.  We try to tailor the solution to the particular environment to ensure we receive the maximum acoustic performance in a configuration that meets the other requirements of a specific vehicle.  For internal combustion engines we have a strategy, but for electric vehicles we have had to adapt to different strategies for electrics.

Measuring Up 

On how Ventac goes about noise reduction projects, our acoustics team would typically go to our customers and do noise measurements on the vehicle.  We would take the bus out on the road, drive it along, and try to get the difference noise characteristics from it, from the hydraulics to the steering.  We try to get a better understanding of any noise problems and figure out where to put noise treatment.  We measure all acoustic frequencies to get a really good picture of what’s going on.  Ventac can come onboard with a vehicle design project at any time during the development phase, and we have worked with a lot of our customers for many years, who simply want their noise problem fixed.

Changing Sound

The type of sounds being tested are changing.  In the past on diesel vehicles it was all about the overall decibel level, and now with electric vehicles it’s all about the whines and whirr’s; it’s much more about the sound quality.  Ventac have the capability to test that, the ranged tonality, the sharpness, the roughness, all these characteristics.

Read the full article here:  Bus and Coach Noise Reduction Specialists

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