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Here's How Honda's Hidden Resonators Keep Tire Noise To A Minimum

It's like having a little ocarina hiding inside each tire

By
Logan Carter
Published4 hours ago
Comments (10)
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A graphic showing Honda's resonators mounted on the wheel rim
Photo: Honda (Fair Use)

As electric cars have taught us, car tires are a major source of
undesirable noise in a car's cabin. Honda has an ingenious solution
to the issue, hidden resonators that work to cancel out the noise 
tires make, kind of like noise-cancelling headphones. Tires are like
balls in that they are made of rubber and filled with air. When a
basketball smacks against the ground, it makes sound at a certain
frequency and tires do the same. Honda's engineers were able to
calculate the frequency of that tire sound, and create passive
resonators that live on the rim of the wheel inside the tire and
cancel the unwanted noise as the air inside the tire moves.

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Tires are hollow rubber cavities filled with air that are basically
dribbling along the surface of the road. The noise generated inside
of a tire is called pipe resonance, and is transmitted through the
suspension into the car's cabin creating the tire noise that vehicle
occupants hear. Honda employed the concept of Helmholtz resonance,
the phenomenon that generates sound when a person blows across the
top of an empty bottle, to create a resonator that wraps around the
wheel and generates a frequency to counteract the tire resonance when
air moves inside the tire.

fig01

According to Honda, noise reducing wheels drastically reduce tire
noise experienced inside the cabin. The resonators are made from a
lightweight resin, and they're secured to the wheel partially by
centrifugal force. They can withstand 1,500 times the force of
gravity during high speed driving, and the design minimizes unsprung
weight which helps maximize driving enjoyment. Honda introduced the
first practical noise reducing resonator in 2010, and has since
developed a second-generation resonator that is half the weight of
the first generation.

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Innovations as simple and effective as Honda's noise-reducing wheels
aren't common, with other manufacturers relying on tires that have
slices of foam rubber inside them to absorb the frequencies. Honda's
solution mitigates more noise and could be paired with foam-filled
tires to further minimize interior noise.

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