Methods and systems are provided for a flexible support for a vehicle. In one example, the flexible support is formed of a composite material and configured to surround a vehicle component and absorb oscillations generated by the vehicle. The composite material may be a mixture of aluminum particles dispersed in an elastomer matrix.

Described herein are noise attenuating ducts and vehicles using these ducts for environmental control systems. A duct comprises an exoskeleton structure and a sound-absorbing structure, disposed within and conforming to the exoskeleton structure. The exoskeleton structure provides external mechanical support to the sound-absorbing structure thereby helping to maintain the tubular shape of the sound-absorbing structure. This external support does not interfere with the airflow inside the sound-absorbing structure. Furthermore, the external positioning of the exoskeleton structure allows the integration of various support mounting features for the installation of the duct in a vehicle. In some examples, the exoskeleton structure comprises a plurality of enclosed openings to reduce the weight of the exoskeleton structure and provide additional flexibility. Furthermore, additive manufacturing of the exoskeleton structure allows achieving a monolithic structure with various features and characteristics described above.

Provided is a silencing tubular structure body that has high strength and can be disposed in a narrow space. A tubular member including a tubular portion having a tubular shape, and a frame portion having at least a part formed integrally with an inner peripheral surface side of the tubular portion; and a lid member that is exchangeably disposed on an opening surface of the frame portion of the tubular member are included, in which the frame portion and the lid member form a resonant silencing structure.

A sound attenuator has an inner pipe (12) with expansion sections (121) of enlarged diameter corresponding to the constriction sections (141) of an outer pipe (14). The expansion sections (121) in pairs axially delimit an intermediate inner pipe section (122) containing a wall opening (18) and having a reduced diameter relative to the expansion sections (121). The inner surface of the outer pipe (14) in each of its constriction sections (141) is connected to the outer surface of the inner pipe (12) in its respective corresponding expansion section (121). A method of manufacturing such a sound attenuator (10) also is provided and uses internal high-pressure forming.

Provided is a flow modification component for use with a muffler, which can be a Helmholtz resonator muffler, a side branch muffler, or a Y-pipe. The flow modification component includes a porous plate adapted for incorporation into a passage to a sound muffling portion connected to a through passage pipe of the muffler or Y-pipe. One or more openings are formed on the porous plate to allow low frequency acoustic waves to pass through into the passage to the sound muffling portion while reducing large-scale turbulent eddies that produce undesirable resonant tones within the aperture tube to small-scale turbulent eddies. The openings having sufficient porosity such that the resulting sound frequency is determined by size, shape, number, and spacing of the openings. The flow modification component can also include a dissipative material component in an internal port passage of the muffler to further reduce resonant tones.

A noise suppression unit is provided and configured to reduce noise generated by gas flow, where the suppression unit includes a body including an inlet port and an outlet port, a central passage structure extending between a first end and a second end of the body, at least one layer of a first absorbing material on the central passage structure and at least one layer of a second absorbing material on the central passage structure, where the first absorbing material and the second absorbing material are different. Sound waves generated by gas flow through the suppression unit passes through the central passage structure and the at least one layer of the first absorbing material and the at least one layer of the second absorbing material to reduce the sound waves and thereby the noise generated by the gas flow.

Compact sound attenuation systems for fluid ducts are provided having one or more sound attenuation units that can be absorptive or reflective, depending on design. Each sound attenuation unit has one or more encircling Helmholtz resonators that fully encircle the duct in a lateral direction. Sound attenuation units can be coincident with the duct well and either interior or exterior to the duct, or in some instances can be partly interior and partly exterior to the duct. Sound attenuation systems can be tuned for maximum attenuation of a single resonance frequency, or can include multiple units of different frequencies for broadband attenuation.

A soundproof structure body includes a first tube structure and a second tube structure connected to the first tube structure and having a cross-sectional area different from the first tube structure, in which a structure body having a cross-sectional area smaller than a cross-sectional area of the first tube structure is installed in the first tube structure, and a transmission loss in a case where the structure body is installed in the first tube structure with respect to a case where the structure body is not installed in the first tube structure is positive at two frequencies adjacent to each other and difficult to generate an air column resonance mode in the first tube structure. This soundproof structure body generates a soundproof effect even at frequencies other than air column resonance of a tube structure such as a duct or a muffler, has a small size, and can obtain a high transmission loss in a wide-band.

A high frequency attenuating device for an air flow induction system of a vehicle employing a thermoformed fibrous mat of any shape that fits robustly inside the duct. The dissipative nature of the fibrous mat helps in achieving broadband attenuation in the high frequency regime. The ability to manufacture the fibrous mat into any shape helps with restriction, targets different attenuation bands, and makes it more feasible to manufacture. Hybrid solutions are possible when combined with low frequency perforated silencers or high frequency QWT arrays injection molded onto them.

A composite structure includes a thermoplastic material and axial fibers and radial fibers arranged within the thermoplastic material. The thermoplastic material can define a substructure of the composite structure. The fibers can be continuous and/or discontinuous fibers. The substructure can be a first substructure and the composite structure can further include a second substructure. Opposing ends of the first substructure and the second substructure are bonded with one another to form a tubular structure. The composite structure can exhibit enhanced damping characteristics such as having a damping coefficient greater than 0.5 lbf s/in. In some cases, this can limit vibrations of the tubular structure to less than 5.0 m/s2.