Global warming, green house gas emissions from automotive combustion engines and shortages in natural oil resources is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. More and more automotive manufacturers admit their responsibility and engage in new energy powered automotive developments. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) are a good example. On the one hand, HFCV have the advantage of producing zero emissions because they only convert hydrogen gas to water with nearly no environment pollution. On the other hand, from an energy resources point of view, hydrogen is a recyclable energy source which has a significant potential to replace conventional fuels.

In cooperation with the Automotive School of Tongji University in Shanghai, the Henkel R&D EAF (Engineering Adhesives & Foams) group worked on a fuel cell car NVH study and realized a breakthrough achievement. The challenge was to eliminate NVH problems caused by the hydrogen fuel cell system and the HFCV car body structure (picture 1). The fuel cell cars were provided by world leading OEM manufacturers.

After a comprehensive investigation comprising NVH signal acquisition, identification of NVH noise sources and an acoustic transfer path analysis (TPA), a Henkel sound package solution including NVH materials and their application on the vehicle, the project was completed successfully and in time. This HFCV research study proves that Henkel NVH solutions can successfully contribute to the new energy concepts of the automotive industry. For instance, our solution to control the NVH performance of the fuel cell unit frame was approved by Tongji and SVW due to the excellent performance of a 2dB reduction in interior noise! This solution will be used and applied in the 2010 Expo cars (picture 2). Moreover the Henkel solution now grants access to all renowned OEMs.

Henkel is a famous international company with more than 100 years of history in adhesives and NVH materials for the automotive industry and is already well accepted by almost all car manufacturers in the world. Henkel’s abundant NVH product portfolio includes sound sealants, damping materials and sound barriers. More important, Henkel’s NVH engineers have the expertise of NVH analysis, acoustic simulation and NVH material characterization. Henkel’s NVH lab is well equipped with state-of-the-art NVH testing instruments. Henkel R&D EAF has the capability to provide total NVH solutions to its customers not only for the automotive industry.

Our success in the HFCV NVH study took us to a successor project – the Expo site golf car NVH project (picture 3). Henkel EAF already offered a total sound package solution and has been approved by Tongji University.