摘要 |
A home appliance includes a panel forming one of a tub, drum, and a housing for the appliance. The panel includes a first metal layer, a second metal layer, and a viscoelastic layer between, and spanning the entireties of, the first and second metal layers. The viscoelastic layer is configured such that the panel exhibits a composite loss factor of at least 0.05. The panel therefore forms appliance structure with integral noise attenuation, which improves upon the prior art by reducing the number of parts and manufacturing steps necessary for add-on noise attenuators. Furthermore, since the viscoelastic layer spans the entirety of the metal layers, noise attenuation is continuous across the panel, unlike many prior art noise attenuators which provide only localized noise attenuation.
|