Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Structural detail
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-03
2001-11-20
Pape, Joseph D. (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Structural detail
C296S039300
Reexamination Certificate
active
06318796
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF INVENTION
The invention relates to a vehicle floor of a passenger car, and more specifically to a sound proofing vehicle floor
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
A vehicle floor of a passenger car generally has a base plate, to which a soundproofing floor covering is applied. In more luxurious passenger cars, an air-conditioning duct is laid in this floor covering, the duct having a duct outlet which opens into the vehicle rear and serving to carry conditioned air from an air-conditioning device of the vehicle into the vehicle rear.
However, such an air-conditioning duct also allows sound to enter the rear area of the vehicle interior, the sound entering in the region of air-inlet openings to the air-conditioning device, for example, or being produced in the air-conditioning device itself, e.g. by a fan motor. To reduce this rise in the noise level in the vehicle interior caused by the air-conditioning duct, EP 0 338 908 B1 discloses the provision of a soundproofing layer of foam on both the inside and the outside of a rigid-plastic core of the air-conditioning duct.
SUMMARY
The present invention specifies an apparatus in which sound transmission into the vehicle interior through the air-conditioning duct is reduced.
The invention forms in the air-conditioning duct a duct portion which decouples adjoining portions of the air-conditioning duct, in particular the duct outlet and the portion of the air-conditioning duct connected to the air-conditioning device. These adjoining portions are decoupled with respect to the transmission of vibrations. For this purpose, the proposal is to construct this duct portion exclusively of a sound- and vibration-absorbing material. The invention makes use of the insight that, in the case of a conventional air-conditioning duct, not only air-borne noise but also structure-borne noise is transmitted. On the one hand, this transmission of structure-borne noise takes place from the air-conditioning device, via the air-conditioning duct, to the duct outlet, from where the noise propagates to an upper layer of the floor covering, the said upper layer generally being of tread-resistant design, and excites this upper layer to vibrate and thus emit noise. On the other hand, a conventional air-conditioning duct forms a bridge for structure-borne noise between the base plate and the tread-resistant upper layer of the floor covering, the bridge allowing the structure-borne noise introduced into the floor covering or produced in it to bypass a soundproofing insulating layer of the floor covering arranged between the base plate and the upper layer and to be transmitted to the tread-resistant upper layer of the floor covering. The design proposed in accordance with the invention of the duct portion with a sound-absorbing and vibration-absorbing effect eliminates or reduces both structure-borne noise coupling between the air-conditioning device and the duct outlet or tread-resistant floor-covering layer and structure-borne noise coupling between the base plate and the tread-resistant floor-covering layer.
According to one embodiment, the vehicle floor air-conditioning duct portion that is composed of the sound- and vibration-absorbing material, can be formed by an aperture in the floor covering or its insulating layer arranged between the tread-resistant upper layer and the base plate, since, in the case of a soundproofing floor covering, the insulating layer generally also has the required property of sound and vibration absorption. An embodiment of this kind makes it possible to save on materials, an advantage in large-volume manufacture.
It is evident that the reduction in sound transmission by the air-conditioning duct achieved by means of the invention is proportionally better, the larger the air-conditioning duct portion configured in accordance with the invention. This absorbing air-conditioning duct portion preferably extends between two seat crossmembers which support a front seat of the vehicle.
Further important features and advantages of the vehicle floor according to the invention will become apparent from the claims, the drawings and the associated description of the figures with reference to the drawings.
It is self-evident that the features mentioned above and those which remain to be explained can be used not only in the respectively stated combination but also in other combinations or alone without departing from the scope of the present invention.
Exemplary embodiments of the invention are illustrated in the drawings and are explained in greater detail in the description which follows.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1733759 (1929-10-01), Snell
patent: 2696774 (1954-12-01), Bayley
patent: 3455595 (1969-07-01), Wessells, III et al.
patent: 4440434 (1984-04-01), Celli
patent: 5052283 (1991-10-01), Altus
patent: 6102465 (2000-08-01), Nemoto et al.
patent: 0 338 908 B1 (1989-04-01), None
Crowell & Moring LLP
Daimler-Chrysler AG
Pape Joseph D.
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