Attenuation of low frequency duct noise by a flute-like silencer ☆

Abstract A broadband, duct noise reflection mechanism is introduced in this theoretical study. It consists of side-branch cavities filled with a light gas, e.g. helium, and covered by impervious, tensioned membranes as two apertures, one at the inlet and another at the exit. Incident waves are scattered by the membranes into two passages, one through the central duct and another through the cavity bypass. Due to the faster speed of sound in the bypass, a Herschel–Quincke tube resonance appears and gives a peak in the transmission loss spectrum. Another resonance occurs when the frequency of the incident sound coincides with the vibroacoustic frequency determined by the membrane tension and inertia contributions from the membrane and the fluid media. With appropriate tensile stress, the trough between the two spectral peaks can be elevated to a desirable high level, e.g. 10 dB, and the crucial factor is identified as the low density of the cavity gas filling. The broadband sound reflection performance is comparable with and even exceeds that of the drum-like silencer [L. Huang, Parametric study of a drum-like silencer, Journal of Sound and Vibration 269 (2004) 467–488] with the same cavity geometry, but the current mechanism requires a low tensile stress which is much easier to implement in practice.