VIBRATION AND NOISE CONTROL IN SMALL

BOATS

Lawrence Zeitlin
VIBRATION CONTROL

I like my boat engines to be completely as completely unobtrusive as my

house cat. To paraphrase the old Rolls Royce commercial, the loudest mechanical
noise aboard should be the ticking of the chronometer.

But - making your propulsion engine purr like a pussycat is a lot more
complicated than just slapping in a few flexible mounts and a flex shaft coupling.
In fact, by selecting the wrong mounts, you can actually make the vibration far
worse than it would have been had you just bolted the engine to the bearers. I'm
not suggesting that satisfied boat owners rip out their engines and install a new
mounting system, however those of you planning a new boat or rebuilding or
repowering an old one might consider the following suggestions.

Think of an engine as a block of iron suspended on a Slinky like spring. If

you pull the engine down slightly and let it rebound, it will bounce up and down
slowly. The rate that it moves up and down is called the NATURAL
FREQUENCY of the system and is dependent on the engine weight and the
strength or restoring force of the spring. The heavier the engine and the weaker the
spring, the slower the engine moves and the lower the natural frequency. If the
engine is light and the spring is stiff, the natural frequency is high.

Now, mount the engine in a boat on flexible mounts. These mounts can be
considered as small springs that deflect or compress slightly by the engine weight.
If the engine is heavy and/or the mounts are soft, the engine will compress the
mounts a good deal and the natural frequency of the system will be low. With stiff
mounts and/or a light engine, the frequency will be higher. Bolting the engine
directly to the bearers is the equivalent of using very stiff mounts and the natural
frequency will be high.

The natural frequency of an engine mounted on flex mounts can be estimated

by measuring the deflection of the mounts and working through the following
equation:
 Fn = 3.13 x sq. rt. (1/ Ds)

where:
Fn = natural frequency in cycles/second
Ds = static deflection of engine mounts in inches

Lets put numbers to this. Assume that we have a Perkins 4-108 engine
mounted on four flex mounts. The deflection of the mounts is .05 inch. The
natural frequency (Fn) of the system would be 14 Hz or roughly equivalent to
840 oscillations per minute. If the mounts were softer and deflected more, the Fn
would be lower. Less deflection and Fn would be higher.

Now engines don’t sit quietly in a boat. They are forced into vibration by
the explosions within the cylinders which produce the power. Pistons move up
and down, the crank rotates, the valves open and close. It is the imbalance of the
moving masses within the engine which produces this forced vibration. The
number of oscillations per second is called the FORCING FREQUENCY. This
forcing frequency (Fd) is largely a function of engine design. A one cylinder engine
has all its masses unbalanced and exhibits a strong vibration at every revolution. A
two cylinder engine can be configured to balance most large motions of the pistons
(i.e., one moves down while the other moves up), but since the pistons are
displaced slightly from each other, secondary rocking forces appear.

A four cylinder engine such as the Perkins 4-108 can balance these forces to
a great extent but not completely. The cylinder firing sequence also adds its bit to
the vibration. It takes at least a six cylinder engine to fully balance all the internal
forces. There is no simple way of calculating the forcing frequency without
knowing a good bit about the engine design. A four cylinder engine like the Perkins
usually has most of its vibration at twice the crankshaft rpm and directed in a
vertical direction. A two cylinder engine has a vertical vibration component at
twice the rpm and a rocking component equal to the rpm. A one cylinder engine
vibrates vertically and horizontally at the crankshaft rpm.

The moving masses of six and eight cylinder engines can be completely
balanced and their blocks tend to be far heavier than the lighter four cylinder
Perkins, Yanmar, and Lehman Fords. Big engines with six cylinders or more can be
firmly fastened to the boat structure without transmitting too much vibration.
Fairly noise tolerant owners of boats with these engines need read no further.
 If the forcing frequency is higher than the natural frequency of the engine on
its mounts then the vibration will not be fully transferred to the boat’s structure
and vibration isolation will occur. That, of course, is what we want. Assume that
our Perkins is running at 1000 rpm. Most, but not all, of the forcing vibration will
be at 2000 oscillations per minute. This is more than twice as high as the
calculated natural frequency of 840 oscillations per minute and vibration isolation
occurs. In this case the isolation is about 80% and only 20% of the engine
vibration is transmitted to the structure as compared with an engine bolted firmly
in place.

Theoretically isolation begins when the forcing frequency is 1.4 times the
natural frequency (Fd = 1.4 x Fn). For a system with a natural frequency (Fn) of
840 oscillations per minute, isolation would start at a forcing frequency (Fd) of
1187 oscillations per minute. If the forcing frequency is closer to the natural
frequency, vibration AMPLIFICATION occurs and there will be more vibration
transmitted to the boat than with a solidly bolted engine. When the forcing
frequency and the natural frequency coincide (Fd = Fn), resonance occurs and the
engine will literally shake itself out of the boat.

If boat engines ran at only one speed, there would be little problem. You
would simply run the engine at a speed where the forcing frequency was at twice
as high as the natural frequency and have at least 90% isolation at all times.
Unfortunately, engines start from rest, idle, and go slowly. At those times, the
forcing frequency may well drive the system into the amplification mode and
excess vibration will be transmitted to the hull. There are a couple of ways to
minimize the problem.

First, choose mounts soft enough so that the natural vibration frequency is
below the normal operating range, even when idling. This means that you should
choose mounts rated for the size and weight of the engine. Stronger and firmer is
NOT better. For the Perkins 4-108, a comparatively light engine, the mounts
should be chosen to support only the actual engine weight at each attachment
point. This is usually given in the engine specification drawings. If you don’t have
this information, the simplest way to determine mount ratings, with the engine out
of the boat, is to put a bathroom scale under each attachment point and note the
weights. Mounts are chosen which have an appropriate static deflection for the
weight at that point. You may need different strength mounts for the front and
rear of the engine since weights are not necessarily symmetrical. Catalogs usually
give the amount of deflection of a given mount by various weights within the
mounts range. You may have to work through the simple equation above for an
arbitrary 80% isolation at idle.

Second, select mounts made of high damping material. These tend to absorb
some of the vibration energy when passing though critical engine speeds. Most
engine mounts are already made of this type of rubber so you don’t have to worry
too much about it. If your engine rocks at certain rpms you can fit a small shock
absorber type vibration snubber, available at most auto stores for transversely
mounted car engines.

Third, move through the critical rpm range quickly and/or avoid it if
possible. If your engine vibrates at idle, set the idle speed slightly higher. Peace
and quiet is usually worth the few extra ounces of fuel.

Most marine engines have four attachment points, one at each corner.
Because this is a marine application where the engine is subjected to severe shock
loads, it is necessary to limit excessive motion of the engine. High damping is
required to control engine motion during startup and shutdown. It is mandatory
that in the event the vibration mount fails, the engine must be kept in place. This
usually means that if the rubber breaks, a metal bolt and retaining washer stop the
engine from falling out of the mount.

It is not necessary to restrict yourself to marine engine mounts. A number of

other mounts would be suitable for specific applications but you would have to
do the engineering work yourself. There are several manufacturers of industrial
vibration control mounts who provide catalogs with full engineering information.
Among these are Lord Industrial Products, 1952 West Grandview Blvd., P.O. Box
10040, Erie, PA, phone (814) 868-5424; and Barry Controls, 700 Pleasant St.
Watertown, MA 02172, phone 617-923-1500. A do-it-yourself custom made
approach is far cheaper than a factory made system but only if you can do the
calculations and fabrications on your own. My favorite factory made mounts for
small engines are the liquid damped Van Den Ouden mounts, although they cost a
bundle.

The calculations are identical for both industrial and marine motor mounts.
Marine motor mounts differ from their industrial counterparts in four respects.
Marine mounts usually have some form of adjustment for leveling the engine. This
is generally a bolt and nut arrangement extending upward from the mount. Lacking
this adjustment screw, the motor would have to be leveled either by shims or by
sliding paired wedges under the mount. Second, marine mounts are often equipped
with a shield to prevent diesel or oil drips from harming the mount rubber. Third,
marine mounts are typically designed to be stiffer in the fore and aft direction to
resist propeller shaft thrust although propeller shaft thrust bearings can eliminate
this requirement. Finally, marine mounts are up to ten times more expensive than
comparable industrial motor mounts (surprised?).

OK, why not fit the softest mounts you can and keep the natural frequency
as low as possible. Well, there is more to vibration isolation than keeping it from
the structure. All flex mounts let the engine move. That is their intent. This means
that all connections to the engine must be able to tolerate motion without breaking.
It means flexible fuel lines, flexible controls, flexible exhaust systems, and most
important, a flexible connection between the engine and propeller shaft. The less
the motion, the less the problem. Back in the days of wooden boats and iron men
the problem was handled by simply bolting the engine to wooden bearers. Engines
were far heavier in those days, hence the natural frequency would be lower, and
the compressibility of the wood in the bearers served as natural shock mounts.
Watersoaked structures have a natural damping ability, unlike fiberglass or metal,
and engine vibration was absorbed before it could rattle out the fastenings. Still,
the engines had to be aligned yearly and the mounting bolts snugged up.

Coupling a flex mounted engine to the propeller shaft requires a way of

absorbing as much lateral deflection as the engine is expected to move at its
maximum vibration point. For a motion less than 0.1 inches, a Drivesaver, PYI
Flexmount or equivalent rubber doughnut will do. This is all that a correctly
mounted four or six cylinder diesel needs. On one of my boats, I have a softly flex
mounted two cylinder Volvo MB10. The engine moves a quarter of an inch in each
direction at its low idle resonance point. Max rpm on this engine is 2000 and it
idles at 650 so I need a high deflection to keep the natural frequency low enough
to get appreciable isolation. In this case I needed a couple of very soft cylindrical
mounts at the front, mounted at 30 degree angle, so that the vertical and rocking
motion would be absorbed partly in compression and partly in shear, and a couple
of soft mounts at the rear which were stiff enough radially to counter the propeller
thrust. The half inch total horizontal and vertical motion of the coupling was too
much to use a rubber flex coupling. Instead I used a double chain coupling between
the engine and propeller shaft. The Boston Gear manual will tell you how to make
one. This is a poor man’s version of a double universal coupling, but better since it
permits sufficient axial motion to avoid a spline joint. A properly sized chain
coupling is stronger than the shaft. All the maintenance it requires is a few drops
of oil every season. This approach works so well that even without any acoustic
insulation my guests usually can’t tell when the engine is on.

OK - let's go back to square one and deal with the problem of attaching the
moving engine to the shaft.

Boat engines must be coupled to the propeller shaft. If the engine is solidly
bolted to the engine bearers AND if the boat maintains a constant shape under all
loading and environmental conditions THEN the engine and shaft could be solidly
bolted together with rigid, fixed flange bearings. The engine and shaft would be
aligned at installation and remain forever married. This was pretty much the case
with very heavily constructed wooden and steel commercial boats.

For pleasure boats, where weight is important, the scantlings are slimmer
and the boats work a bit. Some materials like fiberglass are naturally flexible.
Engines are mounted on rubber vibration absorbing mounts and prop shafts are
supported by rubber cutlass bearings. All these conspire to induce relative motion
between the engine and shaft. Conventional alignment techniques try to reduce
this motion to an acceptable level for normal boat operation. If the boat works or
swells or the engine shifts slightly, alignment must be repeated. Clearly the answer
is a flexible coupling between the engine and prop shaft which is capable of
transmitting the rotary and thrust forces but can tolerate the relative motion
between engine and shaft axes.

Actually all boats have some tolerance for misalignment. The shaft itself is a
flexible member and bends slightly under load. Further, with rubber mounted
stuffing boxes and stern bearings, the shaft can move a degree or so. For some
boats, this is all that is needed. Interestingly, for some boats with slight
engine/shaft misalignment, removing a shaft intermediate bearing may allow the
shaft to bend a bit more and result in smoother running.

However, no rigid coupling can accommodate the motion of an engine

properly mounted to minimize vibration. The smaller and fewer the cylinders, the
greater the motion. Depending on cylinder configuration, the engine may move
vertically, horizontally, yaw, pitch or move in all directions simultaneously. The
worst motion is at slow speeds when we like the engine to be quite and
unobtrusive. The engine mounts have to absorb this motion yet at the same time
resist the thrust of the propeller. The preferred engineering answer is to decouple
the transverse motion of the engine from the shaft, only letting the engine twist
the shaft. This is the job that a flexible shaft coupling tries to do.

A flexible shaft coupling simply joins engine and prop shaft with some
device which lets the twisting force get through but does not transmit horizontal
or angular motion of the engine. It should also retain the shaft in the boat and
allow the propeller thrust to be transmitted to the structure. For moderate degrees
of engine motion, a rubber or plastic biscuit fixed between coupling flanges works
OK. This is probably the oldest method. Most automobile steering wheels are
connected to the mechanism which turns the car wheels by a flexible fabric
reinforced disc. If you trust you life at 100 mph to this system, why not your
boat? The Globe "Driversaver", the PYI "Flexmount", the Vetus "Bullflex" and
about half a dozen other couplings are of this type. They do not accommodate
more than a small amount of misalignment but they are comparatively cheap.
Because they do not let the engine and prop shaft get much out of line, no
additional shaft support or shaft thrust bearing is needed.

Mechanical flexible couplings allow more misalignment. These usually

consist of engine and propeller shaft flanges connected by a mechanical device
which is torsionally rigid yet allows horizontal and angular play between the
flanges. The chain coupling is probably the best example. The length of double
roller chain wrapped around the hardened sprockets that substitute as coupling
halves has sufficient play that the couplings can move slightly with respect to
each other yet still transmit the torque. Contrary to what you might expect, the
chain does very little flexing, and because the radius of the coupling is so small,
centrifugal forces are very low. In fact the chain could rust solid and the coupling
would still work. The extreme case is the flexible gear coupling in which the chain
is replaced by a loosely fitting external gear connecting both halves. A single
mechanical coupling can accommodate perhaps 2 to 3 degrees of misalignment and
up to 1/8 inch of horizontal play. If that is not enough for a very flexibly mounted
engine, two such couplings mounted back to back with a 6" to 8" stub shaft
between them can handle up to 1/2 inch motion and 6 to 8 degrees of
misalignment. The downside of any mechanical linkage is rust and noise. If these
couplings are kept reasonably dry and squirted with oil occasionally, they will last
almost forever. For bad conditions or to minimize noise, they can be wrapped in a
grease filled neoprene boot, just like the wheel universals on your front drive car.
Really finicky boat owners can get chain couplings made of stainless steel,
originally intended for food processing machinery. Boat use of properly specified
mechanical flex couplings is considered light loading for industrial quality
components. Most are intended for 24 hour continuous heavy duty work.
 For extreme engine motion or bad, bad misalignment problems, nothing beats
a double universal joint system. Thousands of them are in use in boating already.
How else do you think the power gets to the outdrive in an inboard/outdrive
installation? A double universal joint system will allow up to 30 degrees of
misalignment between engine and prop shaft. Actually, add a few more joints and
you can point the engine athwartship while driving a stern mounted prop. several
models, including Aquadrive, Scania, and the Evolution system incorporate
constant velocity joints to further decrease the vibration. The downside is
expense, expense, expense and thrust intolerance. As the angle between the engine
and shaft increases, less and less of the thrust reaches the thrust bearing in the
reduction gear and more is directed sideways tending to rotate the engine. That
eliminates the athwartship mounted engine. The fix is to incorporate a thrust
bearing on the prop shaft to transfer the thrust to the boat structure before it
reaches the engine.

To sum up:
1. Flexible couplings let the engine axis move with respect to the shaft
simplifying vibration mounting of the engine and alignment problems.
2. Couplings arranged order of increasing flexibility: Rigid, rubber biscuit,
rubber in shear, single mechanical (chain, gear, flange), dual mechanical couplings,
universal joints, dual universals.
3. Very flexible couplings (say > 10 degrees) will require a thrust bearing on
the shaft.
4. Properly designed couplings do not explode, shatter, or otherwise cause
catastrophe if they are kept out of the bilge and oiled once a generation.
5. The real weak spot in the power transmission system is the propeller
shaft setscrew and key arrangement. For security, shafts should be kept in place
by USCG approved clamp couplings or by through pins of reasonable diameter.

MINIMIZING NOISE IN TRAWLERS

Like many others on the T&T list, I started my boating career in sailboats.
For me, one of the great appeals of sailing was its comparative quiet. It is very
difficult to escape from noise in our modern environment but while on the sailboat
the loudest noise I had to contend with was the rattling of the halyards. My
transition to trawlers provided a rude awakening. Trawlers are noisy. I was told
by other trawler owners to live with it. It goes with the territory.
 There are several approaches to dealing with a high trawler noise problem.
You can simply do nothing, pretending you are driving a slow unlimited class
hydroplane or a Harley with a gutted muffler. Of course you may need a hearing
aid in a few years. An alternative approach is to use ear plugs or external "Mickey
Mouse" sound absorbing ear protectors. These are cheap. Single use ear plugs
such as those sold by Flents or E.A.R. sell for about 25 cents a pair. External ear
protectors cost about $10. Both will provide about 30 dB of sound attenuation.
Either can be bought at an industrial supply or hardware store or in a gun shop.
The downside is that they attenuate all sounds and shipboard conversations must
be carried out by signing.

If you are technically inclined you can try a noise cancelling system. This
approach has been suggested for aircraft cockpits and luxury cars. A microphone
picks up the ambient sound. An amplifier circuit reverses the phase by 180
degrees and drives a loudspeaker. The two out of phase sound waves cancel each
other and comparative quiet reigns. The zone of silencing is limited in area. If you
move very far from the loudspeaker, the sounds may no longer be out of phase
and may even be amplified, creating a noisier environment than before. Normally
automobile drivers and airplane pilots don't get out of their seats and wander
around the cockpit. A more portable solution is a pair of sound cancelling
earphones such as those sold by Bose. These cost about $300 each. A considerate
skipper will provide a pair for each crew member and guest.

Naturally, if you throw enough money at the problem, it can be solved in a

more direct manner. In its new line of fiberglass high performance powerboats, the
DS 45 and DS 53, Linssen has achieved an astounding level of acoustic silencing.
Even at 30 kts. Linssen advertises up to 40 dB of sound attenuation between the
engine room and the boat's wheelhouse and living quarters. Of course these are
luxury boats with a base price of over $1,000,000. Patrick Gerety, former manager
of Willard Marine's recreational line once told me that the last W30 series of
trawlers carried $10,000 worth of acoustical insulation because upscale buyers
demanded silence. I tend to believe him.

But I suspect that Willard, and many other trawler manufacturers are going
about sound and vibration minimization the wrong way. You can't just muffle a
noise producing device cheaply. It takes sound absorption materials and mass,
correctly applied in layers of sound insulation. Automobile manufacturers faced
this problem years ago and came up with other solutions. Look under the hood of
your car. You will find very little insulation to contain the sound and vibration of
a lot of moving machinery. What the auto makers did was to develop ways of
decoupling the noisy and vibrating components from the structure of the auto
body. Only a small amount of acoustic insulation is necessary to keep the airborne
noise out of the passenger compartment.

BACKGROUND

Noise is simply defined as unwanted sound. The operative word here is

UNWANTED. If you are a rock fan you may be perfectly happy blasting out Def
Jam to the limit of your stereo speakers capability while your chamber music
loving neighbor in the next slip is dialing the police with shaking fingers. The
sound level in his boat may be one tenth of that in your saloon but to him it is still
noise.

But, in addition to being irritating, loud noise has other effects. It can make it
difficult to hear radio messages and acoustic navigational signals. Extended
exposure to high level noise can inhibit the ability to concentrate and can cause ear
damage, raise blood pressure and trigger other health problems.

Before we get too deeply into noise reduction, let's talk for a minute about
how sound is measured.

Sound pressure is measured on a logarithmic scale using a unit called the

BEL. Named, of course, after Alexander Graham Bell. Each BEL increase or
decrease is a 10 times increase or decrease in the sound pressure. For convenience
the BEL is divided into 10 parts or deciBELs (dB). A change of approximately 3
dB indicates a doubling or halving of the sound pressure level.

But those are physical measurements. They only loosely correspond to the
perception of loudness of a sound. The human ear responds to changes in sound
pressure with its own logarithmic system. The range of human hearing is
enormous and covers a 120 dB range from the threshold of hearing to the onset of
auditory pain. That's a trillion times difference in sound pressure. A 3 dB change,
or halving of the sound pressure is barely noticeable. A 6dB drop in sound
pressure will produce a trivial change in loudness. It takes at least a 30 dB
reduction in sound pressure for a sound attenuation method to make a real
difference. That represents a 1000 time reduction in the sound pressure level.
 Manufacturers who sell sound reduction equipment rarely indicate the
reduction in perceived loudness, merely the reduction in physical sound pressure
as measured in dB. They hope that the typical user will confuse the two measures
and believe that a 50% reduction in sound pressure corresponds to a 50%
reduction in loudness. It does not. It is a barely noticeable change in loudness.

Powerboats are perceived as noisy for several reasons.

First, internal combustion engines are remarkably efficient noise generators.

They operate by a series of explosions in the cylinders and release pulses of
energy in the exhaust. Valves open and shut interrupting the flow of air in the
intake manifold, each interruption creating a wave of sound. And the gears,
pumps, turbos and injectors add to the cacophony.

Second, human ears are very sensitive. The threshold of hearing at 1000 Hz
is .0002 dynes/sq. centimeter. To put it into terms more familiar to the average
trawler owner that works out to .00000013 hp. A small amount of energy indeed.
Ten watts of acoustic energy, a tiny fraction of a horsepower, in the middle of the
hearing range, would drive us screaming from an engine room. Continued exposure
would cause permanent hearing loss. No wonder so many band members are
partly deaf from playing in front of their 150 watt sound systems. Unfortunately
so are many of us from a lifetime of exposure to noise.

Finally, the boats themselves are effective at transmitting sound throughout

their interior. Most of what we think of as noise in a fiberglass boat is really
structure borne vibration which forces the relatively thin boat panels to resonate.
Minimize structure borne vibration and you go a long way toward making a boat
quiet. And it doesn't require $10,000 of after the fact noise insulation. Just a little
attention to the physics of sound and vibration control will do it.

NOISE CONTROL ACTIONS

If you want to minimize the noise in recreational boats, you should take the
following actions, arranged in rough order of importance.

First, and probably the most important, is to prevent engine generated

vibration from being transmitted to the boat's structure. This was discussed in the
previous series of notes. But to recap, the engine should be mounted on soft
rubber mounts designed to provide at least 80% vibration isolation. More isolation
is better. Usually that means that the weight of the engine will compress rubber
mounts by .05" to .1". But since the engine will move a fair amount with this level
of isolation, a flexible connection with the drive shaft is necessary. Elastomeric
doughnuts such as the Drivesaver or PYI between the coupling flange halves will
provide a minor reduction in vibration. The best approach is to use a double
constant velocity universal joint coupling. Examples are the Scania, the Aquadrive,
and the Evolution couplings. These all include a thrust bearing that transmits prop
thrust directly to the hull and spares the engine mounts the necessity of handling
engine thrust as wall as vibration. All engine connections, fuel lines, and controls
must be capable of dealing with engine motion.

Second, the engine should be provided with adequate mufflers both on the
intake and exhaust. Exhaust muffling is handled relatively well in wet exhaust
systems using an Aqualift type muffler. The injection of water into the hot
exhaust cools the exhaust and extracts some of its energy. The large volume of the
muffler smooths out the exhaust pulses. Additionally the long rubber hose to the
exhaust outlet used by most boats further attenuates the sound. If the exhaust is
not quiet enough after all this processing, an inline exhaust muffler, such as those
sold by Vetus, can be added to the exhaust line. Dry stack exhausts must be
muffled in the same manner as a car. The muffler should be a large chamber with
baffles. Entry and exit pipes should be tuned to minimize sound at the cruising
RPM. Just letting the exhaust exit through a tall pipe above the deck doesn't do it.

Intake mufflers are often overlooked in marine installations. The intake

valves interrupt the air flow into the engine up to ten times a second creating sonic
pulses whose higher order harmonics are well within the hearing range. If you look
under the hood of your car you will see that the intake muffler/air filter consists of
a large cylinder or box with a relatively small intake port. The combination of the
air filter and restricted opening attenuates the intake sonic pulses. Run your engine
with the air filter open or off and you will hear the difference. On many boat
diesels the filter consists of an oil saturated metal gauze which works admirably to
keep dust particles from the engine innards but does little to block the sound. An
Airsep type filter does a better job of noise control.

It is amazing how much sound can get through a small hole. The bulkheads
of the engine compartment are penetrated by many ducts and cables, each of
which can offer a pathway for engine generated noise to escape. Example: The
engine compartment in my Willard is below the pilothouse floor. It has a heavy 1"
plywood hatch layered with sound absorbing material. The hatch was penetrated
with a 3/4" hole intended to be used as a finger hole. When operating at over 2000
RPM, engine noise in the pilothouse was excessive. Simply sealing the back of the
hole with a 1/4" thick square of plywood dropped the noise level in the pilothouse
by 10 dB. So the third step in noise control is to close all openings in the engine
room leading to the living spaces aboard the boat.

Many of these openings can be sealed or gasketed with little interference

with function. If a throttle or shifting Bowdon cable runs through a hole in the
engine room bulkhead, seal the gap with a blob of silicone caulking. The same for
electrical wiring or conduits or even exhaust hoses. Silicone caulking is fireproof
and can be pulled out if replacement or repair of the cable or wiring is necessary.
Some openings are required for air intake and ventilation. These should exit
outside the hull whenever possible and be covered by louvers directing the sound
away from the living spaces.

Acoustical texts are replete with techniques of suppressing sound

transmission through ducts. Most of these involve making several right angled
bends in the duct and lining the interior with sound absorbent material. Few are
practical for the engine compartment. What is practical is making a single right
angled bend in ducts for air intake and ventilation, and using a sound absorbent
lining. Alternatively, the hole in the compartment wall can be covered by a large
baffle at least 6" in diameter greater than the hole. The baffle, covered with sound
absorbent material on the side adjacent to the entry hole, should be spaced 3" from
the hole by several dowels or spacers. This will permit air to enter or exit yet
block some of the high frequency sound emanating from the compartment.

Fourth, the walls and overhead of the engine compartment and large panels
in the living space should be treated so vibration is kept to a minimum. If vibration
transmitted through the boat structure excites a thin panel or bulkhead into a
sympathetic vibration, it doesn't matter how much effort you have expended in
sound treating the engine room. It's just like having a loud speaker in the living
space blasting out engine sounds. One way of minimizing panel vibration is to add
viscous mass. In automobiles a rubber based undercoating is applied to thin metal
panels to change their vibration characteristics. Suitable application of a viscous
coating can make a tinny car door sound like it is made of armor plate. If a panel
vibrates and the back side is accessible, this is a convenient and cheap solution.
We used a modified undercoating in the inside of tanker's helmets to stop them
from vibrating like a bell when the 50 caliber machine gun was fired. Auto grade
undercoatings are generally not used in boat engine rooms because of the potential
fire hazard. However, in the saloon, undercoating is no more dangerous than a teak
panel. For engine rooms I have used Silent Running SR 1000, a USCG approved
water based vibration and sound dampening material made by Current Composites
of New Haven, CT (www.silentrunning.us). Other manufacturers make similar
materials.

Another way of minimizing panel vibration is to stiffen the panel by gluing

or screwing rigid battens to the backside. Shelves or picture frames fastened to the
front serve the same purpose. What you want to do is change the natural
frequency of the panel so that it does not vibrate in resonance with the engine. In
extreme cases, you can make a bulkhead or panel virtually soundproof by
fastening another panel to its back, spaced about 1 inch away by wood strips
around the edges, and filling the cavity between panels with dry sand. This
technique is often used in large Hi Fi enclosures to completely kill panel vibration.
The best way to impede sound transmission between rooms or compartments is
to use a brick and mortar wall. About 12" of brick and mortar will reduce the
sound transmission by 60 dB. It goes without saying that this is only practical in
the largest of boats, perhaps in the QE2 range.

Eventually, you will want to apply sound treatment to the interior of the
engine compartment and living spaces. The mistake most people make is using
sound absorbing material as the first step in a noise reduction program when it
should come near the end. The material is expensive and a great deal more will be
needed if you don't control sound at the source. One of the best ways to do this is
to construct a box around the engine using heavy materials. A heavy gauge steel or
sturdy plywood enclosure around an engine would work extremely well as long as
the box extends down to the engine bearers. This approach is impractical for most
trawler main propulsion engines but is the method of choice for generators and
auxiliary power sources. The interior of the box should be lined with heat resistant
sound damping materials and the air intakes should be baffled.

All common sound absorbing materials work by converting the energy of

moving air particles in the sound wave into heat which is then dissipated into the
surrounding surfaces. To effectively capture the sound wave, the absorbing
material must have a thickness of at least a quarter of a wave length of the sound
in air. Since sound travels at approximately 1100 feet per second, a wavelength of
a 1000 Hz sound is about 11 inches. This means that if we use a fluffy fiberglass
absorbing material, it should be 2 1/2 to 3 inches in thickness. Higher frequency
sounds require less material, low frequency sounds, more material. We can get by
with a thinner sound absorbent layer if we add mass to the capturing medium.
This mass is usually in the form of heavy particles distributed through the
absorbing medium or by incorporating lead membranes between layers of foam or
fiberglass. The sound wave is weakened by using its energy to move the mass.
Lead membranes in sound absorbing material also reflect some of the sound back
toward the source.

Typical non-weighted sound absorbing materials are made of foam or

fiberglass covered with a mylar or vinyl facing. The acoustical properties of foam
or fiberglass are the same but fiberglass is much more fire resistant and is suitable
for engine compartments. USCG rated 2" thick fiberglass with an acoustic scrim
facing costs about $4 a square foot, foam or non-USCG rated fiberglass between
$2 and $3 a square foot. The acoustic material is available in sheets up to 4' x 8'.
The material is attached to bulkheads and overheads with adhesive. One or two
battens per section may be required to hold it in place for security. Particularly
noisy engine rooms will profit from using lead composite insulation consisting of
one or two lead membranes sandwiched between layers of foam or fiberglass. The
lead composite material weighs 1 to 2 lbs per square foot depending on thickness.
It is heavy stuff. A typical engine compartment in a 40' trawler might well use
200 lbs of lead composite insulation. Costs are higher than for plain foam or
fiberglass. A square foot of 2" thick, 1 lb/sq. ft. fiberglass lead composite
insulation with a white mylar overlay costs $6. The 2 lb/sq. ft. fiberglass lead
composite insulation costs about $8.50 per sq. ft. As might be expected, lead
fiberglass sandwiches using all USCG approved materials are more expensive, each
square foot running $7.50 for the 1 lb. weight and $10 for the 2 lb. weight. These
are retail prices. A search of the internet might find better values.

If you install fiberglass or lead composite fiberglass materials on the

bulkheads and overheads of the engine compartment, be aware that fiberglass has a
tendency to separate from itself. The edges of the panels should be wrapped with
a mylar tape to hold the material intact. Most insulation suppliers will cut the
material to a pattern and wrap the edge for you. Installation is by either adhesive,
reinforced by judiciously placed mechanical fastenings; or, by covering the
insulation with pegboard or perforated aluminum. For steel or aluminum boats, the
insulation is usually cut to fit between the angle stiffeners.

The final step in silencing a boat is to use acoustic carpet underlays in the
inhabited areas. I assume that your boat has carpets rather than teak and holly
flooring. Acoustic carpet underlay material is similar to the sound insulation used
for walls but is covered with a fiber carpeting material. It is also available in a lead
composite composition. The material is sold in rolls, usually 4 1/2 feet wide, of
unlimited length and is cut to fit on the site by the installer. Adhesive holds it in
place. Your Persian rugs are placed over it. The cost for the fabric material is
between $10 and $15 per linear foot of the 4 1/2 ft. roll. I would use this
underlayment in any carpeted boat because it will suppress sound coming up from
the mechanicals and it doesn't cost much more than normal carpet underlayment.
The Persian rugs are optional. Then hang up a lot of drapes and soft fabrics to
prevent reflections from hard surfaces and cover the overheads and bulkheads with
fuzzy woolen carpet. Just kidding! I wanted to see if you were paying attention.
(But it wouldn't hurt.)

There are a number of suppliers of acoustic treatment materials. The most

complete listing is in a professional engineering magazine named "Sound and
Vibration" available in most engineering libraries. You can also read it on the
internet if you google "Sound and Vibration."
But rather than buy from individual suppliers, I prefer to get everything
from one source. It saves worry and shipping although it hardly guarantees the
lowest prices. Recently I've been buying acoustical supplies from the Soundown
Corp, a Marblehead, MA company that specializes in marine acoustics treatment
(www.soundown.com). Your preference may vary. Most large cities have a
supply house which sells architectural acoustics materials which are very similar
to those I have described above.

If you follow the sequence steps I have listed you can make your boat as
quiet as the $1,000,000 Linssens. You may even be able to hear your cat purr.

Larry Z
Cortlandt Manor, NY