How Mufflers Work

If you've ever heard a car engine running without a muffler, you know what a huge difference a muffler can make to the noise level. Inside a muffler, you'll find a deceptively simple set of tubes with some holes in them. These tubes and chambers are actually as finely tuned as a musical instrument. They are designed to reflect the sound waves produced by the engine in such a way that they partially cancel themselves out.

Mufflers use some pretty neat technology to cancel out the noise. In this edition of how muffler works, we'll take a look inside a real car muffler and learn about the principles that make it work.

But first, we need to know a little about sound.