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How Mufflers Work

By: Karim Nice

Inside a Muffler

Located inside the muffler is a set of tubes. These tubes are designed to create reflected waves that interfere with each other or cancel each other out. Take a look at the inside of this muffler:

The exhaust gases and the sound waves enter through the center tube. They bounce off the back wall of the muffler and are reflected through a hole into the main body of the muffler. They pass through a set of holes into another chamber, where they turn and go out the last pipe and leave the muffler.

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A chamber called a resonator is connected to the first chamber by a hole. The resonator contains a specific volume of air and has a specific length that is calculated to produce a wave that cancels out a certain frequency of sound. How does this happen? Let's take a closer look ...