Journal of Sound and Vibration (1994) 170(5), 621-636 ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE OF MEMBRANE ABSORBERS W. FROMMHOLD, H. V. FucHs AND S. SHENGT Fraunhofer-Institut fiir Bauphysik, Nobelstrasse 12, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany (Received | May 1990, and in final form 26 August 1992) “This paper is a report on the acoustic properties of absorbing elements, which consist of metal membranes and show good sound absorption at tow 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. 1. INTRODUCTION ‘A membrane absorber, which does not contain porous materials but consists only of vibrating metal membranes on a lightweight metal honeycomb structure, has previously been described [1]. The typical construction of such an absorber is shown in Figure 1. The smooth covering membrane seals the component against humidity and solid particles, and reduces the flow resistance to a minimum. When properly dimensioned, a good absorption effect over slightly more than an octave is achieved at low and medium frequencies. These properties make the clement appropriate for special requirements in industrial applications {2,31 The relatively complicated structure of the membrane absorbers in Figure 1 makes it clear that its acoustic behaviour depends on a number of construction parameters and the material's properties. The design of an optimized absorber for a particular application is therefore a complicated task that has so far been solved only heuristically. This paper describes analytical and experimental studies of the influence of various construction parameters on the input impedance of membrane absorbers for normal incidence sound waves. The normal impedance Z was selected as the basis for the study because it is the central parameter for calculating both the absorption coefficient (for applications in room acoustics) and the propagation loss (for applications in silencer ducts) and it can be reliably measured in an impedance tube. The absorption coefficient a of a locally reacting lining at an arbitrary angle of incidence Bis given by [4] A(Z’}Zp) cos (B) [(Z’/Z,) cos (B) + IP + [(Z"/Z,) cos (B)P* Here Z is the normal impedance, Z)= pec, po is the air density and c is the sound speed in air. For an effective broadband absorber in the frequency domain in question, therefore, wD + Now at Tongji University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. 621 0022-460X/94/100621 + 16 $08.00/0 © 1994 Academic Press Limited622 W. FROMMHOLD ET AL. ZZ f is’ Figure 1. A silencer splitter made of membrane absorbers. 1, Frame: 2, chamber walls; 3, flexible perforated membrane; 4, covering membrane; 5, bearing plate. Z'/Zy% 1 and Z"/Z_*0 is demanded. In the silencer duct the propagation loss D for a locally reacting lining is given by [5) D =8-68 Re {. (chy — RAY ILIA, 2 where L is the length of the silencer, h is half the free distance between the splitters and the wavenumber & = a/c. The quantity ch has to be calculated from the equation (ch) tan (ch) = jkhZy/Z. ° The absorption D reaches its theoretical maximum value at the branch point of the Morse chart for the symmetrical mode 0 (plane wave) at approximately khZy/Z = 2+ j1-7 [5]. From this the optimum wall impedance may be deduced: Z/Z, = kh(0-29 — j0-247), 4 This impedance depends on the frequency and the spacing between the splitters. When designing a silencer for low frequencies, for typical distances between the splitters of A ~0-1m, the resulting wall impedance should be considerably smaller than Z,. An absorber construction without any porous material, like that in Figure 1, meets this requirement at low frequencies. ‘The studies of a single resonator cavity start with the non-resilient perforated membrane (Helmholtz resonator only) and the flexible unperforated membrane (plate resonator only). After that, a flexible perforated membrane, and finally the influence of an additional cover membrane, is examined, In addition to the normal impedance, the absorption coefficient at normal incidence and finally the sound attenuation in the duct are calculated. 2, RESONATOR CHAMBER WITH A SINGLE PERFORATED MEMBRANE The test object is a cylindrical cavity as illustrated in Figure 2. The wall and bottom consist of 1 mm thick aluminium sheets which are considered as being acoustically rigid.MEMBRANE ABSORBER ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE 623 Figure 2. The cylindrical test object (units mm). ‘The perforated membrane consists of an aluminium sheet of thickness t and is glued onto the cavity. The average acoustic impedance over the total surface A = nb?in the membrane plane may be derived for periodic excitation: namely, Z =pl6 =pAlg = pA(S\0, + S:%2), (3) where S,= na? and S; = A — 5,. First of all, a separate examination of two limiting cases for the perforated membrane seems to be useful. 2.1, HELMHOLTZ RESONATOR If the perforated membrane is thick enough and therefore sufficiently stiff, v, = 0. For the acoustic impedance of the Helmholtz resonator Z,, related to the surface of the holes Si ' Z= Ry +j0M,+ Vion, © is valid [4,7]. As long as the dimensions of the cavity are small compared to the wavelength, the compliance of the cavity volume V is given by N,=Vipye?S,. a With the two-sided end correction At the equation for the vibrating mass in the hole is written as M, (t + At). 8) In the case of a very thin plate, At = 1-7a is valid according to reference [4]. However, it is difficult to determine the friction losses in the neck of the Helmholtz resonator. With rounded edges R= i5/nfpou In (4a/t) Oo} is obtained according to data in reference [8]. For a cylindrical hole it is stated in reference [8] that: Rix / hoot (4+ 2/0), (10) where 4 = 1-86 x 10°Ns/m?, The first term in the parentheses in equation (10) defines the flow resistance at the membrane surface, and the second term defines the resistance on the wall of the hole, The values calculated according to equation (10) are already higher than those calculated according to equation (9). If the edge of the hole is very sharp, R, once more increases considerably [8]. A quantitative estimation for this case, however, is not available from standard textbooks.624 'W. FROMMHOLD ET AL. The punched holes of the perforated membrane may have burrs. For a realistic model calculation R, has therefore to be determined experimentally. According to Figure 3 this is done by gluing the thinner membrane with the resonator hole (2a = 10mm) onto the stiff top plate with a slightly larger hole. The result in the impedance tube, z =r +ix, is related to the total surface A and normalized by Zo: 2 =(Z,/Z)(A/S:). ap The test result in Figure 3(a) shows, for the real part r, the typical frequency dependence on the values calculated according to equations (9) and (10). The absolute value, however, is considerably higher. Therefore a modification for further model calculations is carried out by replacing the parentheses in equation (10) by the factor 16. Upon now introducing the quality factor Q of the resonator, equation (6) yields z=Ri1 +i0(2-2)} (2) where Q =(1/R,),/M,[N, and w3=1/M,N;. Equation (12) describes simply the be- haviour of the resonator and, simultaneously, allows comparison with the test results. Since R, is a function of the frequency (/) the quality Q is dependent on frequency. For the resonance frequency f, = 174 Hz with the above-mentioned modification of R,, a value Q 653 results for the test object shown in Figure 2. The maximum absorption coefficient at normal incidence, according to equation (1), is determined only by r. The quality factor Q determines the slope of x around the resonance frequency, and is therefore decisive for the bandwidth of the absorption curve. So sol ) 30. 38 oct ose oa \ ot 05 cag 0.02] 4 ool ‘0100200300 400600600 f(z) Figure 3. The normalized acoustic impedance (resistance) for f = 0:2 mm. (a) Helmholtz resonator with sharp punched hole: —, measurement; -, calculation according to equation (9). (b) Plate resonator with flexibly glued membrane (measurement),MEMBRANE ABSORBER ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE 625 2.2. PLATE RESONATOR If the perforated membrane is thin and the hole area S, disappears, one has a plate resonator. For sufficiently large plates, the stiffness is not important; the plate vibrates as a whole in a piston-like manner. The mass related to the surface S, = A then amounts to M,=p,t. (3) the compliance of the cavity volume V is N,=4/(poc?), (4) and the resonance frequency is given by cw? = 1/M,N, = poc?/p, td. (is) For the compliance N,, according to equation (14), itis again assumed that the dimensions of the cavity are sufficiently small relative to 4/4, This requirement is not fully met at the higher resonance frequency of the plate vibration, so that an error examination is advisable, For the acoustic impedance of the air layer of thickness d in front of a rigid wall Z = pocij tan (wdic) (16) is exactly valid. Only if the argument of the tangent is small does equation (16) become Z =I/G@N,), according to equation (14). The exact resonance frequency is obtained as a solution of the equation JoM, — pool tan (wdjc) = 0. ay ‘This resonance frequency is represented in Figure 4 by the solid line as a function of the depth of the cavity d. The parameter is the quantity p,7/p). For comparison, the approximation according to equation (15) is given as a dotted line. For a very lightweight and thin plate and larger depth of the cavity, the exact resonance frequency is significantly lower than the resonance frequency as calculated by equation (15). If, in this case—at least in a limited range of frequencies—the calculation is continued with a lumped element N,. a compliance equivalent to the resonance frequency in equation (17) is determined. Far more important, however, than these details concerning the compliance of the cavity volume, is the consideration of the stiffness of the membrane! In reference [9] the modal FAHi2) ° Or cy 03 dm) Figure 4. The resonance frequency of a plate resonator, with bending stiffness disregarded. —, Exact solution from equation (17); ++, approximation from equation (15). Parameter: p,t/p,626 W. FROMMHOLD ET AL. impedance over the surface A has been calculated for square cavities with the edge lengths e. This + 1 [DG +in) Pot? JOM, Am ts [ Boy + AS ee ™ _DBralt , L[DByy , boc? ae HOM, dan +55 [ ot | (18) where D is the bending stiffness of the plate, D= EPA v9, (9) rris the dissipation factor of the plate material and E is Young's modulus. For fixed edge clamping the constants 4, and B,,, for the lowest symmetrical plate mode of interest here, are [9] Ay, = 2-02 and B,, = 2640. If the numerical values for a square cavity of the same surface A as in Figure 2 a1 ted into equation (18), ie., e?= 2b?, then the bending stiffness for ¢ = 0-2 mm is slightly higher than the stiffness of the enclosed air volume. Equation (18) has been verified by experiments [9] for e «Sem. It does not apply, however, to larger dimensions because then the plate no longer vibrates in the assumed bending mode. This becomes obvious, when, in equation (18) defining the resonance frequency, e goes to infinity, so that one has 1 [DBy , poe? btda [Fee a | (20) This «wo? differs by the factor 4,, = 2 from the value in equation (15), which has been verified in various experiments. A second difficulty arises from the fact that the membrane is fixed onto the cavity by a permanently elastic glue. Therefore it cannot be considered as clamped. The quantities Ay, and By ate subject to uncertainty, and R, is determined less by the inner losses of the membrane, but rather mainty by losses at the gluing area. For this reason it is useful to determine the characteristic quantities of the plate resonator experimentally. For the plate resonator the surface transformation as in equation (11) is omitted and R, is directly obtained from the measured value r = R, /Zy. The quality factor @ can be determined by the slope at the zero crossing of x = Z”/Zp: Ax/x % 4/M,/N, 24f Ifo. @) In Figure 3(b) is shown the test result for the cylindrical cavity shown in Figure 2. R, is approximated in the vicinity of the resonance by R, + 0-15Z,, According to equation (21), a quality factor Q = 12:8 is found from the shape of the x curve. 2.3, CHAMBER WITH FLEXIBLE PERFORATED MEMBRANE The resonator cavity sealed by a vibrating perforated membrane as shown in Figure 2 can no longer be generally described by lumped elements as was done in the preceding sections. Both the friction losses and the effective vibrating mass in the hole (¢ in equation (8)). are determined by the relative velocity between v, and the membrane velocity at the edge of the hole. In particular, the vibration form of the membrane cannot reliably be described. According to reference [10] the frequency of the lowest symmetrical mode of a clamped square plate does not increase significantly with insertion of a hole with a= (0l,...,0-2)b. These considerations, however, ate valid only for vibrations in vacuo, whereas in reality friction forces act at the edge of the hole. For these reasons, only a simplified model is developed here, with any coupling between the resonators being disregarded. It consists of employing v,*p/Z, and v,=p/Z, in equation (5) asMEMBRANE ABSORBER ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE 627 approximate values for the velocities. This seems to be permissible, because membrane absorbers according to Figures 1 and 2 are constructed for a broadband effect in such a way that the plate resonance frequency f, is approximately twice the Helmholtz resonance frequency f,. Because of their relatively high quality factors the two resonator types have a high spring and mass impedance outside their resonance frequency. Therefore the velocity r near f, is still rather low, so that v, can be approximated by the mechanism of the Helmholtz resonator alone. ‘On the other hand, the velocity ©, near f, is small, and o, is mainly determined by the mechanism of the plate resonator. It must only be taken into account for Zz, that the stiffness of the air volume V is partly reduced by a compensating movement of the air plug in the hole; i.e., the resonance frequency drops. This change in the total compliance can be determined according to equation (18). For a square membrane with the same surface as in Figure 2, NY, increases by the factor 1-46 because the volume compression does not exist any more. The solid line in Figure 5 represents the measured values for the resistance rand the reactance x of the normatized acoustic impedance for the absorbing element shown in Figure 2. The calculated values with the corrected compliance of the plate resonator closely approximate the measured values. For the reactance x, good agreement is found up to values around the Helmholtz resonance f, 174 Hz, because the membrane still remains at rest due to its stiffness. Near the plate resonarice (measured with a sealed membrane, f, «370 Hz) the measured value for x lies half-way between the calculated values with and without taking into account the compression of the air volume V. It is Boh 20 +0} os} + og! og onl 05} 0.03; oot! * 4 -2| ~3 4 8k <6 0100200 300-400 500 600 f(tiz) Figure 5. The normalized acoustic impedance (F resistance, x reactance) of the cavity with a perforated membrane; ¢ = 0-2 mm, 2a = 10mm. —, Measurement; °-, calculation with compression of the volume V; ===, calculation without compression of the volume ¥.628 W. FROMMHOLD £T AL, ool L L L . 0100 200 300 400 ~—«500~——600, ee f(z) Figure 6. The absorption coefficient a of the cavity with a perforated membrane; 1 — Measurement; «:, calculation with compression of the volume ¥; of the volume 2 mm, 2a = 10 mm. calculation without compression only in the range between the two resonance frequencies that the simplified model without coupling of the resonance mechanisms does not yield sufficient agreement. The solid line in Figure 6 represents the measured values for the absorption coefficient in comparison with the calculated values. Agreement is good in the range of the Helmholtz resonance. According to the course of x, the second peak for the measured values lies again between the calculated values with and without taking into account the compression of the air volume. =5| 4 ‘7 100 300-800 ——-400-——~BOD B00 fH) Figure 7. The measured normalized acoustic impedance of the cavity with a perforated membrane; f = 0-1 mm,MEMBRANE ABSORBER ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE 629 Altogether, the simplified calculation model reproduces the situation at least qualitat- ively in the right way, and in the range of the Helmholtz resonance even quantatively. This is also true if the movement of the plate is not mainly determined by its stiffness. In Figures 7 and 8 are shown results of measurements of an absorbing element as shown in Figure 2 with plate thickness r = 0-1 mm. According to equation (18) the resonance frequency f, is then almost independent of the material stiffness, and for calculation of Z,, similar to that with equation (12), the values according to equations (13)-(15) can be used. The measured impedance is compared with the values calculated with compression of the air volume in Figure 7, The calculation describes the situation qualitatively in the right way. The zero crossing of x above 300 Hz corresponds quite well to the calculated value according to equation (15): ie., for the very light and slack membrane there is, in the domain of f,, hardly any compensating movement over the hole for the compression of V. The measured values for the absorption coefficient are shown in Figure 8. Two peaks also appear for the slack 0-1 mm membrane: one slightly below the Helmholtz resonance J, 195 Hz (some vibration of the membrane in the vicinity of the hole), the other in the vicinity of the resonance frequency of a plate resonator f, = 330 Hz. If the hole is sealed bya film, the first peak disappears as expected. The second peak, however, does not change significantly. Its height declines slightly, because the high friction losses at the edge of the hole have disappeared. ‘The experiments discussed above confirm the concept of two (weakly) coupled resonance mechanisms with two corresponding peaks in the absorption coefficient. The first peak can be sufficiently well described by a Helmholtz resonator, The second peak can be related to a plate resonance, but its position can be predicted only approximately by a combination of plate stiffness and volume stiffness of the cavity with compensation by the hole. 3. RESONATOR CAVITY WITH FLEXIBLE PERFORATED MEMBRANE AND COVER MEMBRANE In the common construction of a membrane absorber as shown in Figure 1, a thin covering membrane, which protects the element against humidity and dust, is fixed at a moderate distance away from the flexible perforated membrane. The influence of this additional covering membrane is investigated by experiment. The perforated membrane is 0-3 mm thick, the covering membrane 0-1 mm. The diameter of the hole is 12-5 mm. The 0100 200 800-400 ~—<500 «G00 Fez) Figure 8. The measured absorption coefficient a of the cavity with a perforated membrane; ¢ = 0:1 mm, 2a = 12-5 mm. —, Hole open; ---, hole sealed with film630 ‘W. FROMMHOLD ET AL. Lay T T T T oof ost om ose eS O5r oak ost oat oat ool n L 0 100 209-300-400 500600 F (Hi) Figure 9. The measured absorption coefficient a of the cavity with a perforated membrane (¢ = 0:3 mm) and with a covering membrane (,= 0-1 mm); 2a = 12-3mm, -——, Perforated membrane alone; —, perforated ‘membrane with foam support and a covering membrane. TOT mi covering membrane rests on the perforated membrane via a foam ring approximately | mm thick. By using this soft mounting the large slack cover membrane is properly modelled. The measured absorption coefficient with and without the covering membrane is shown in Figure 9. In the range of the Helmholtz resonance below 250 Hz the absorption curve appears to be mainly shifted to lower frequencies. This shift corresponds almost exactly to the additional mass 4M of the covering membrane: ZwZA/S,)+jo4M, AM & pyty, (22) where ¢, is the thickness of the covering membrane. Physically, however, AM certainly consists partly of the covering membrane and partly of the air enclosed between the membranes. Above approximately 250 Hz the absorption coefficient increases considerably upon attachment of the covering membrane, Between 300 and 400 Hz absorption coefficients of about 0-8 are now obtained, and the breakdown at 290 Hz is less distinct. This clear improvement is mainly due to a considerable increase of the resistance of the acoustic impedance above 200 Hz, as shown in Figure 10. In the whole frequency domain between 100 and 400 Hz, r now approximates 1, the optimum value for an absorber. Reasons for the increase of the losses by installing the covering membrane may be as follows: (1) viscous losses in the thin air layer between two vibrating plates-—if the distance between the plates is sufficiently small (<1 mm), these losses are known to be employed for noise abatement pttrposes [11]; (2) losses of the foam support; (3) increase of the viscous losses by flow around the sharp edges of the holes [1]—the air plug in the hole can no longer vibrate freely into the upper half space, but is pressed around the edge into the gap between the membranes. The additional losses according to (1) and (2) here are only slightly dependent ‘on frequency, An increase of the losses according to (3), however, can be especially expected at the resonance frequencies, where the relative velocity between air plug and edge of the hole reaches its maximum. The experiments described below illustrate the role of these three mechanisms. In Figure 11 is shown the absorption coefficient of a Helmholtz resonator with a 2mm thick perforated plate with and without a covering membrane. All other dimensions are the same as those of Figure 9. Here again the curve below approximately 200 Hz shifts to lower frequencies to the same degree as in Figure 9. Simultancously, a greater increase631 onal oor! 5 4 4 3 2 1 x oo 4 at J a J ab 4 = J “8 ‘100-200-300 400 500 G00 FUE) Figure 10, The measured acoustic impedance of the cavity with perforation membrane (i = 0-3 mm) and with a covering membrane (i, = 0-1 mm); 2a = 12:5 mm. -—, Perforated membrane alone; --—, perforated mem- brane with foam support and a covering membrane. in « can be observed at about 100 Hz, which corresponds to a simitar increase in r as in Figure 10, Above approximately 2501Hz, however, only a small and relatively constant increase in « can be observed with the thick perforated plate: that is to say, after attaching the covering membrane the losses do not increase as dramatically as in Figure 9 for the flexible perforated membrane with its plate resonance. This indicates a predominating influence of the additional losses at the sharp edge of the holes, according to (3). (In this 0100 200300 —~400~—~=«SOD SCO fz) Figure 11. The measured absorption coeficient a of a Helmholtz resonator: ---, without covering ‘membrane; —-, with foam support and a covering membrane.632 ‘W. FROMMHOLD ET AL. context, refer again to Figure 3.) In the next experiment, the 1 mm thick foam support is replaced by a metal ring of the same thickness in the construction shown in Figure 9. The results for the fixed support in Figure 12 show a deterioration of the absorption coefficient over the whole frequency range; the Helmholtz resonance has even totally disappeared. The reason for this is that the covering membrane with a fixed support does not function any longer simply as a vibrating mass in front: the eigenfrequency of the clamped 0-1 mm film in vacuo already lies slightly above 100 Hz according to the equations in references [4, 10], and even increases, because of the coupled volumes, up to the vicinity of the Helmholtz resonance. Under such circumstances the interaction between the covering membrane and the air movement in the hole cannot be treated easily. Here it can only be stated that the covering membrane is to be fixed as softly as possible. In real silencer splitters built as shown in Figure | this requirement is met by fixing the covering membrane only to the frame, and by the fact that it spans freely over and above all cavities. In the last experiment the thickness of the foam support, in the construction according to Figure 9, was raised from 1 mm to 5mm. The measured acoustic impedance is shown in Figure 13. By increasing the distance between the membranes, a distinct reduction in the resistance r was obtained, especially in the vicinity of the two resonances. This was to be expected, because at larger distances the air plug in the hole is allowed to vibrate freely into the upper half-space. For a distance between the membranes as large as 5mm the r-values still lie in a very favourable range. For the reactance a slight shift can be observed at higher frequencies; below 250 Hz the covering membrane, in both cases, functions merely as unadditional mass. 4. CALCULATION OF THE ABSORPTION OF SILENCER SPLITTERS MADE OF MEMBRANE ABSORBERS: The investigations described above on a cylindrical absorbing element can be trans- ferred, at least qualitatively, to silencer splitters with rectangular cavities. Differences occur particularly in the range of the plate resonance, where the stiffnesses of the circular and the rectangular plates differ, even with an identical total surface 4. The solid line in Figure 14 represents the calculated propagation loss D for a 1m long silencer duct with a 0-1 m half-free duct width and a wall lining of absorbing elements as shown in Figure 2, with a flexible perforated plate but without a covering membrane. This calculation was based 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Fila} Figure 12. The measured absorption coefficient of the cavity with flexible perforated and covering membranes. —, Foam support, {mm thick; ---, metal support, J mm thickMEMBRANE ABSORBER ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE 633 3a 24 19 os . 03} 02] 04 008} 9.03; ity abo ao ato 5000 f(t) Foam support, Smm thick; ~ + foam support, I mm thick. on the dotted Z-curve in Figure 5 (with compression of the air volume in the cavity). Extreme peaks in the attenuation curve occur in the vicinity of the two resonance frequencies; a significant minimum, however, is found between them, as expected from Figure 5 for the resistance of Z. A comparison with a silencer of the same length, which ‘consists of a 0-5m long section of pure Helmholtz resonators and a 0-5 m long section of 100; 90 sok TOE Propagation loss (dB) T o106"““b00 300400500600 FH) Figure 14, The caleutated propagation loss in a silencer made of membsane absorbers, Z = 1 m, h = 0-1 m; impedance according to Figure 5 with compression of the volume V, without @ covering membrane, °-, (-5'm long silencer made of pure Helmholtz resonators or pure plate resonators; ---, | m long combined silencer of single resonators; —, 1m long silencer of membrane absorbers.634 W. FROMMHOLD ET AL. Insertion loss (4B) 6) 125~—~250~—«0D Cdk 2k ak OB (Ha) Figure 15. The insertion of a 1 m long splitter silencer of membrane absorbers; —, Without flow; 10'mjs flow in the direction of sound propagation {3} =, with, pure plate resonators (dashed line in Figure 14), is worth mentioning. The thicknesses of the splitters, the distance between them and the total length are identical, so that the two silencers can be compared. In almost the whole frequencies domain, the membrane absorber silencer shows a significantly higher attenuation than the combined silencer. Its attenuation is smaller only in the range between the resonances. According to the results in Figure 10, however, the resistance of Z in the range between the two resonances is increased by fixing an additional covering membrane at a small distance away, so that the attenuation breakdown between the two resonances will be less significant with real silencer splitters with a covering membrane as shown in Figure 1. 5. EXAMPLES OF REAL SILENCERS Applications of membrane absorbers in silencers are of interest when high sound absorption and/or lightweight robust construction is required in a frequency domain of 1-2 octaves below approximately 500 Hz. Particularly for sound sources with peaks below 200 Hz, an experimental lay-out of the membrane absorber can be carried out in a silencer test facility [2,3]. The influences of the most important construction and material parameters on the absorption behaviour, as described previously, are useful to expedite the lay-out of optimum elements and to diminish the expenditure for the experiments. Final operational proof, however, will always have to be given for a prototype according to the obligatory measuring standard for silencers [12]. In Figure 15 is shown the result of such a measurement for silencer splitters of alternating cavities with a volume of 100 x 100 x 100mm? with a covering membrane, . 1 BTS B50 BW Tk 2k aE Be f (Ha) Figure 16, The insertion loss of a 1m long cylindrical silencer. ——, Octogonal silencer made of membrane absorbers, without covering membrane; —-, circular silencer with porous absorption material.MEMBRANE ABSORBER ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE 635 made of aluminium, As mentioned in section 4, the attenuation between the resonances at approximately 200 and 400 Hz decreases by only a few dB. For a whole octave the absorption exceeds 10 dB. The measured results for an octogonal cylindrical silencer of membrane absorbers without a covering membrane are shown in Figure 16. In this case as well, the absorption breakdown between the resonances remains moderate; the absorption stays above 25 dB for two octaves. For comparison, the dashed line shows the measured results for a cylindrical silencer of the same dimensions, but filled with mineral wool. In the frequency domain below 500 Hz its absorption is significantly smaller. This paper describes, in a more rigorous manner, the physical mechanisms discussed in reference [13], In the meantime, the membrane absorbers were installed in various process ventilating systems where heavily loaded and chemically aggressive exhaust gases called for extremely resistive and stable sound attenuators made completely out of high-quality stainless steel [14]. The most spectacular application of the new noise control technology, however, has now been realized in a large wind tunnel for full-scale tests on vehicles at a maximum speed of 165 mph [15}. Thanks to careful aerodynamic and acoustic model tests, it was made possible to silence the fan down to 63 Hz with practically no pressure loss penalty. In both the tunnel ducts and the free ficld measuring section the silencers and wall linings were adapted to the fairly broadband fan noise spectrum by very efficient combinations of membrane absorbers with coated plastic foam material. One of the advantages of this new aero-acoustic wind tunnel is that its measuring crew and sensitive instrumentations are not affected by fibrous particles carried by the high speed air flow. 6. SUMMARY Membrane absorbers which consist of a solid honeycomb structure with vibrating perforated membranes glued onto it show two resonance points, which can be related to a Helmholtz resonance and a plate resonance. By adding a thin and loosely fixed covering membrane, the acoustic behaviour in the absorption minimum between the resonances is further improved and the element is sealed hermetically. Especially when applied in silencer duets, even though of the same size, combination of the two resonance mechanisms in one single element yields higher sound attenuation than a combination of silencers partly of pure Helmholtz and partly of pure plate resonators. The theoretical and experimental parameter studies described herein do not permit one to predict exactly the acoustic performance of a membrane absorber. However, they may help to diminish the expenditures required for empirical improvement of the membrane absorbers for a required absorption spectrum. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due to the Bundesminister fiir Forschung und Technology (BMFT) for financially supporting one of the authors as a visiting scientist on leave from Tongji University, Shanghai, in 1989-90. This work was continued with considerable support through a bilateral exchange program involving the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). REFERENCES 1. U, ACKERMAN, H. V. 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Panel sound absorbers. 10. A. W. Lessa 1969 Vibration of Plates (NASA SP-160). Washington, D.C.; United States Government Printing Office. 11. A. Trocumpis 1989 Acustica 69, 270-275. Vibration damping of circular saws. 12. DIN 45635/1SO 7235. Measurement of silencers in ducts. 13. H. V. Fucus, U. ACKERMANN and W. FROMMHOLD 1989 Bauphysik 11, 28-36, Development of non-porous absorbers for noise control (in German). 14, H. V Fucus 1993 ZKG 5, 261-267. Sound absorbers for heavily fouling exhaust gas systems. 15. H. V. Fucus, D. Ecxoupr, U. Essers and J. Porrnorr 1992 DGLR/AIAA 14th Aeroacoustics Conference, Aachen, I-14 May 1992, 177-186. New design concepts for silencing aeroacous wind tunnels.