Abstract
The vehicle rearview mirror is critical to safe driving, and a premium qualifying factor is its vibration performance, which therefore has to be most carefully designed. On account of the complex combination of shape, component materials, mounting, target vibration specifications, and economics of the mirror system, practical design inevitably relies heavily on computational analysis, often done by the finite element method. This article examines this process, focusing on the comparisons of mirror systems based on different materials. This article, to the authors’ knowledge, considers the broadest collection of materials, to date, in works of this type. Several practical higher performance composites - a class of materials which our earlier study pointed to would most probably improve performance - have been investigated to draw conclusions on how dynamic performances of rearview mirror units relate to the properties of the materials utilized. The results should further aid design optimization and cost.