Emergency Vehicle & Heavy Truck Composites
Polymer Technologies energy management materials have been used in Fire Trucks, Ambulances and on-highway Trucks since our inception in 1989. Applications include passenger cabins, walls and engine compartments, with the goal reducing the amount of noise and thermal energy transmitted into cab by use of firewall, hood/tunnel, sidewall insulation, floormats, engine isolation treatments, and mitigating any noise within the cab via trim treatments, e.g. headliners.
Floormats
Our interior solutions for emergency vehicles and heavy trucks include Polydamp® acoustical floor mats. We have a variety of different wear surfaces, our most popular being the pyramid type wear surface. These floor mats provide anti-slip and abrasion resistance while simultaneously acting as acoustical barriers to noise and vibration entering the compartment from underneath the vehicle or through the firewall.
Polytech® closed cell foams are typically used as decouplers for compression resistance, comfort, and thermal insulation, while also separating the barrier and floor mat to optimize effectiveness. Polydamp® acoustical foams are also used as truck wall insulation in sleeper cabs, door panels, or general wall panels creating the cab of the truck. Polydamp® acoustical foams also act as thermal insulators within those environments and add a degree of transmission loss and acoustical absorption.
Headliners
Our solutions for interior trim include a Polydamp® acoustical foam or melamine foam used to reduce db levels within passenger compartments, i.e. the reverberant or reflected sound within a compartment. The headliners can be either two dimensional flat parts or three dimensional molded shapes which can be designed to fit into a specific location (i.e. door or ceiling panel).
Engine Enclosures
At Polymer, our solutions isolate noise and heat within the engine compartment as much as possible or dissipate it into areas that do not directly affect the operator, passenger, and pedestrian. The firewall that separates the interior of the engine compartment from the passenger compartment is typically made from a range of materials (based on the temperature range in the area and noise reduction needed), including absorptive foam or cellular-based products such as our Polydamp® acoustical foam (urethanes). Higher temperature environments are served by our Polydamp® melamine. The foams are available and typically supplied with protective film facings. These facings can be reflective (foils or metalized polyesters) or opaque (Tuffylm® urethane) and are also available in different colors based on customer requirements or preferences. Facings provide additional durability, heat and light reflectivity, oil and water resistance, ultimately extending the life and improving performance of the insulation. Polydamp Acoustical Barriers are also employed to enhance dBA reduction, typically separated from the firewall by a decoupling layer.
Additionally, noise source isolation can be provided directly on the engine through the use of an absorber/barrier combination such as a Polyform® molded solution. This solution can cover a timing belt or sidewall block for noise isolation, thus attacking the noise source directly rather than the adjacent areas surrounding the noise source.