Experimental studies of a drumlike silencer.

The theoretical finding of the broadband performance of a reactive silencer is validated experimentally. The silencer consists of two highly stretched membranes lining part of the duct and backed by two long and shallow cavities. The test rig was built with a small square duct of 5 cm in dimension, and each cavity is 5 cm deep and 25 cm long. Two types of metal foils, stainless steel and copper, were used, and the lowest membrane-to-air mass ratio was 1.3. A transmission loss in excess of 10 dB was achieved over more than one octave band. For one configuration close to the optimal parameters, the predicted ratio of the frequency band limits is 2.47, while the experiment gave 2.35. Three spectral peaks were found in the stopband, as predicted, but the peaks were broader than prediction, indicating the presence of significant sound energy dissipation mechanisms. Comparison with theoretical simulation shows that the cavity damping dominates over membrane friction. Tests using heavier membranes and membrane with different levels of tension also agree with predictions. Issues of practical implementation of the concept as a flow-through silencer are also addressed.