Acoustical Evaluation of Automotive Headliner Composites with Various Adhesive Systems

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Acoustical Evaluation of Automotive Headliner Composites with Various Adhesive Systems

Pikula, Daniel G. / Kocsis, Michael J. / Brandon, Richard H.

Adhesive materials are required to bond cover fabrics to most molded interior headliner substrates. Several thermoplastic adhesive films are qualified and used at U.S. and Japanese OEM's. These adhesive films offer benefits such as convenience, cost effectiveness, excellent adhesive performance and process efficiency while reducing concerns of emissions and hazardous waste handling compared to prior bonding methods.The automotive headliner part is a multifunctional component of the vehicle's interior trim. One of the main headliner functions is to reduce the interior cabin noise. Various adhesive materials are used in a lamination process to form a composite headliner. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of this lamination process and various alternative adhesive materials on the overall acoustical performance of the headliner composite.Various headliner samples were fabricated under controlled process conditions and tested by an independent acoustics testing lab. A given foam-backed fabric and headliner base substrate were selected as controls while the adhesive systems were varied.The paper will discuss the design criteria, sample fabrication and testing procedures used along with the results of the study.