Choosing right vibration damping product

We offer a wide range of vibration damping products which makes it rather difficult to choose the right one for your case. In this article we’ll explain how to choose the right one.

Automotive vibration damping products in general vary by thickness, ranging from 1mm to 5mm and there is quite a simple reasoning for that: only thicker products are able to absorb enough vibrations from thicker metal plates.

The right choice of the product is simply a combination of these two attributes: weight and damping factor based on thickness of metal it is applied to.

• Damping factor: as an example – if you have thicker steel such as floor of the car then using the thinnest vibration dampers on it will have very little effect – vibrations will overpower the damping factor of the material. On the other hand, if we use a 4mm thick product on very thin metal of the roof it will add too much weight and may cause new low frequency humming noise to appear
• Weight: Since the weight of product is proportionate to its thickness, adding extra unnecessary weight is going to pointlessly increase fuel consumption without adding any benefit

Which brings us to the point that is frequently asked – is it possible to cover all surfaces in a car with one thickness of vibration damper? The truth is – yes it is, but the results will be far inferior to optimally balanced combination.

A very simple rule of thumb that can be used for choosing the products – top of the car uses thinner metal, use thinner products there, bottom of the car uses thicker metal which needs thicker products and middle of the car is in the middle.

In the table below we outline optimal choice of our products for each area in a standard modern car: