The reverberant room at SEAT's Technical Center in Martorell, Spain, is used to ensure that more than a thousand points, the source of sound in an automobile, from engine to wiper, produce the least noise.
NASA runs tests in the Atacama Desert, located in Chile, whose surface is similar to that of Mars. The only sound you can hear in Ushuaia, Argentina is the flapping of penguins and the breaking glaciers. These could be the quietest corners of the planet. But they are not. The quietest places in the world are rooms without an echo. This term is used for facilities in which acoustic conditions are produced that are close to almost silent.
He finds one of these rooms at SEAT's Technical Center in Martorell. This room was designed with a system called "Box in box" to measure the noise and noise produced by a car with full precision and without any external intervention. As its name implies, it consists of several layers of steel and solid layers, and is thus isolated from the outside world. It contains a coating material that absorbs 95% of the sound waves to prevent echoes and sound reflections. In some of these temples, people can hear the blood circulating in their veins or the air that fills their lungs.
A car, more than a thousand voices
The engine, the spinning wheels, the door closing, the air conditioning system and the reclining seat… The sounds a car makes are endless to list. Here, all of these are analyzed in this room. Since the engine and exhaust system are the elements that give the car its sound, engineers and technicians pay great attention to them. Many sounds a car makes inform us. For example, the sound of direction change signals allows us to understand that the signals are active without looking. However, engine and exhaust sounds do not only tell us when to change gears or our speed. They also give an idea about the character of a model.
"We all know how a sports car engine sounds," says Ignacio Zabala, SEAT Acoustic Department Manager. For this reason, we examine whether the engine sounds like we want in an anechoic room. If the ventilation system makes a lot of noise, it makes no sense to have a car that is completely isolated from the outside world. Therefore, a harmonious balance must be created between the two elements by reducing noise and revealing some sounds. ”
Stating that the main goal is to make the passengers feel as comfortable as possible, because the acoustics directly affect the comfort and are one of the determining factors of the vehicle quality perception, Zabala says that the tests are repeated in different climatic conditions; “The windshield wiper does not sound the same when the weather is very hot outside and the temperature is below zero. The same is true for the engine that has been running for a while with the newly started engine and the wheels that touch different surfaces. ”
Source: Hibya News Agency
