Active Structural Acoustic Control of repetitive impact noise

This paper discusses the effectiveness of an Active Structural Acoustic Control (ASAC) system for the reduction of impact noise, radiated by structures with a high modal density in the controlled frequency range. Although there is a significant difference in nature between periodic and transient noise, up till now no specific research on ASAC of transient noise was reported. This paper focuses on the design of control algorithms, adapted to the specific properties of impact noise. Since many industrial impact noise problems involve successive impacts with a repetitive behaviour, control algorithms with a learning behaviour are discussed. The efficiency of these Iterative Learning Control (ILC) algorithms is demonstrated extensively in this paper. The developed ASAC strategy has been verified on a thick steel plate, which is excited by successive impacts. The obtained results show that ASAC can be a very efficient transient noise control technique in certain industrial applications (e.g. presses, punching machines,...).