Sound transmission loss through a corrugated-core sandwich panel with integrated acoustic resonators

The goal of this study is to better understand the effect of structurally integrated resonators on the transmission loss of a sandwich panel. The sandwich panel has facesheets over a corrugated core, which creates long aligned chambers that run parallel to the facesheets. When ports are introduced through the facesheet, the long chambers within the core can be used as low-frequency acoustic resonators. By integrating the resonators within the structure they contribute to the static load bearing capability of the panel while also attenuating noise. An analytical model of a panel with embedded resonators is derived and compared with numerical simulations. Predictions show that acoustic resonators can significantly improve the transmission loss of the sandwich panel around the natural frequency of the resonators. In one configuration with 0.813 m long internal chambers, the diffuse field transmission loss is improved by more than 22 dB around 104 Hz. The benefit is achieved with no added mass or volume relative to the baseline structure. The embedded resonators are effective because they radiate sound out-of-phase with the structure. This results in destructive interference, which leads to less transmitted sound power.