Breaking the Sound Barrier for a New Jet
The Montreal-based aircraft manufacturer Bombardier made big news when it announced its decision to enter the market for commercial jets with over 100 seats. The first plane in the Bombardier C-Series is slated for completion in 2013 and will compete with Boeing and Airbus.
To help with development, Bombardier chose C&D Zodiac, an OEM that designs, certifies, manufactures and integrates aircraft interiors. JM got involved in the project through its customer Orcon Aerospace, the company that won the bid to design and manufacture the insulation package for the entire fuselage.
With representatives from Orcon, C&D Zodiac and Bombardier on hand, JM completed the first phase of the project by conducting 59 sound-transmission tests over 18 frequency ranges on 16 product prototypes. There are currently only a handful of labs in the U.S. with anechoic chambers that can be used for such specialized acoustical testing. One of these is located at the JM Technical Center in Littleton, Colorado.
"The JM Technical Center provided all of the necessary equipment and expertise to evaluate the acoustical characteristics of Orcon's design concepts for the development of the C-Series thermal/acoustic insulation package," explains David Carillo, an aerospace engineering and regulatory affairs manager at Orcon. "The collaborative effort produced valuable data that will be instrumental in optimizing the C-Series insulation performance."
At present, Bombardier is still analyzing the test findings to select the best configurations for the second round of testing. "We will be looking at the results carefully," says Robby Lapointe, a senior acoustics and vibration specialist at Bombardier. "The data will certainly help us to make the right product selection."
