Study of Gap Flow Effects on Sound Transmission Through a Micro-Perforated Sandwich Cylindrical Shell Excited by a Plane Wave

This paper presents a theoretical model to study sound transmission through a micro-perforated double-walled sandwich cylindrical shell with emphasis on the potential of internal gap flow to improve the sound insulation performance. This model adopts Donnell’s thin shell theory to govern the shell motions and a simplified model based on Biot’s theory to describe sound propagation in the porous lining. The mean acoustic particle velocity model with the grazing flow effect is applied to define the coupling condition between the fluid medium and the perforated shell. Transmission loss (TL) through the configuration with one gap flow is numerically calculated using the mode superposition method when subjected to an oblique plane wave in the presence of an external mean flow. Results reveal that the gap flow in the opposite direction to the external flow would elevate the mid-frequency TL. Gap depth has a complicated effect on TL since it influences the aerodynamic damping of the gap flow and sound dissipation in the porous layer. The average TL in 20–20[Formula: see text]000[Formula: see text]Hz is then optimized with a genetic algorithm, and an increase of 17.82 dB is finally achieved. The possibility of tuning the structural sound insulation performance by the gap flow has been verified.