Study on inhomogenous perforation thick micro-perforated panel sound absorbers

Abstract

Micro-perforated panel (MPP) sound absorbers are usually made of a thin panel and have narrow absorption bandwidth. This drawback causes the application of MPP to be limited. In this paper, the possibility of realizing wider absorption bandwidth MPP with sufficient structural strength is investigated. For this, multi-MPP (resonator) arranged in parallel to form an inhomogeneous perforation MPP is introduced to widen the absorption bandwidth. The thickness of MPP must be 1.5 times higher than perforation diameter or more in order to have appropriate strength. The characteristics of corresponding absorption coefficients are studied parametrically using theoretical models as thick panels can reduce the MPP’s performance. It is found that the absorption bandwidth of thicker panels with inhomogeneous perforation approach can be at least twice times of classical MPP. The problem of reduced peak absorption coefficient in a thick panel can be avoided by keeping the acoustic resistance value around 1± 0.5 Rayls. Compared with homogeneous MPP, inter-resonator interaction exists in the inhomogeneous perforation thick MPP that causes the overall absorption to become higher due to the increasing of the acoustic resistance as well as the shifting of peak resonance following residual acoustic reactance. The measurement results confirm all of the characteristics.

Keywords

• micro-perforated panel absorber
• thick panel
• inhomogeneous perforation pattern.