Muffler Performance Studies Using a Direct Mixed-Body Boundary Element Method and a Three-Point Method for Evaluating Transmission Loss

In this paper, a single-domain boundary element method is presented for muffler analysis. This method is based on a direct mixed-body boundary integral formulation recently developed for acoustic radiation and scattering from a mix of regular and thin bodies. The main feature of the mixed-body integral formulation is that it can handle all kinds of complex internal geometries, such as thin baffles, extended inlet/ outlet tubes, and perforated tubes, without using the tedious multi-domain approach. The variables used in the direct integral formulation are the velocity potential (or sound pressure) on the regular wall surfaces, and the velocity potential jump (or pressure jump ) on any thin-body or perforated surfaces. The linear impedance boundary condition proposed by Sullivan and Crocker (1978) for perforated tubes is incorporated into the mixed-body integral formulation. The transmission loss is evaluated by a new method called the three-point method. Unlike the conventional four-pole transfer-matrix approach that requires two separate computer runs for each frequency, the three-point method can directly evaluate the transmission loss in one single boundary-element run. Numerical results are compared to existing experimental data for three different muffler configurations.