An experimental-numerical study on the vibro-acoustic characterization of honeycomb lightweight panels

Lightweight components are widely used in several technology sectors such as in transport and machine design and an appropriate knowledge about their vibro-acoustic performance characteristics is desired already in early design stages. Although they are able to offer a highly attractive weight saving, lightweight structures often exhibit unsatisfactory dynamic, i.e. noise and vibration, reduction skills. Among different indices commonly used within the research field, in this work the focus is on the acoustic Insertion Loss (IL) evaluation to describe the vibro-acoustic behaviour of lightweight panels. A simple test set-up is developed and used in order to experimentally investigate the transmission properties of different panels. Furthermore, several numerical studies allow the construction of an updated numerical model which can be used to predict the vibro-acoustic characteristics of lightweight structures mounted in the test set-up.