ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE OF MEMBRANE ABSORBERS

This paper is a report on the acoustic properties of absorbing elements, which consist of metal membranes and show good sound absorption at low and medium frequencies over more than one octave. The studies refer to the sound absorption coefficient and acoustic impedance at normal incidence of the sound waves. It is shown that the behaviour of the absorbing element is mainly determined by a combination of Helmholtz resonance and plate resonance. The parameters of the separate resonators are determined both by theory and experiment and serve as input data for a simplified calculation model, which can be used as an auxiliary tool for designing membrane absorber silencers. © 1994 Academic Press Limited.