The term “perforation” refers to a process of punching tiny holes into a material, such as paper or leather. There are a variety of reasons to employ this process—for example, perforating the pages of a notebook makes them easier to tear out of the binding. Another common reason to perforate a material is to improve its ability to reduce sound.
In this article, our team at IPS Perforating, Inc. will explain how perforated leather is used in car design because it improves automotive noise reduction.
- Sound Absorption – Leather is already a good material for automotive noise reduction because it is soft enough to absorb sound waves rather than reflecting them back as echoes. When sound waves hit soft materials like fabric or leather, their energy is absorbed into the material and therefore muffled, while sound waves tend to bounce off harder surfaces.
- Sound Wave Disruption – Perforating leather makes it even better at automotive noise reduction because the tiny holes help break up sound waves. Essentially, when sound waves hit a solid, polished surface, most of the energy is reflected back in the same direction, which keeps the wave strong and loud. The tiny holes in perforated leather break up big sound waves into smaller wavelets with less energy, which causes the noise to peter out faster. Perforations also send the smaller sound waves in different directions, which reduces echoing.
If you are interested in using perforated leather in your vehicles, we encourage you to reach out to our team. All you need to do is source the material and we will perforate it to your specifications.