Secondary source and error sensing strategies for the active control of sound transmission through a small opening

The openings of an enclosure allow natural ventilation and light ingress but also act as a point of entry for noise of the whole structure. In this paper, the active control of the sound transmitted through a small opening in a wall formed by two infinitely-large baffles is investigated up to 4 kHz. Based on an analytical model developed with the modal expansion method, the effects of different secondary source and error sensor strategies are compared numerically for different types of primary sound fields. The upper frequency limit of effective control is found to be determined by the eigen-frequency of the acoustic modes of the opening. Experimental results with an opening of 6 cm by 6 cm on a 31.8 cm thick wall agree well with the numerical results. The upper frequency limit of effective control is found to be 2750 Hz for a single-channel system and 3900 Hz for a 4-channel system with more than 10 dB noise reduction. It is concluded that implementing active control in small openings with an appropriate secondary source and error sensing strategy can extend the frequency range of control significantly, so that the active control systems can be applied to more noise control scenarios which have both noise reduction and ventilation requirements in the middle to high frequency range.