Micro-structure Modelling of Acoustics of Open Porous Materials

Transportation is a large and growing part of the world’s energy consumption. This drives a need for reduced weight of rail vehicles, just as it does for road vehicles. In spite of weight reductions, the vehicle still has to provide the same level of acoustic comfort for the passengers. Porous materials, with more than 90% air, are often included in multi-layer vehicle panels, contributing to acoustic performance without adding much weight. Here the acoustic performance of open cell porous materials, with focus on flow resistivity, is evaluated based on simplified microstructure models to investigate the effect of anisotropy on the performance In order to evaluate how the redistribution of material affects the flow resistivity, the porosity of the material is kept constant. Two micro-geometries are analysed and compared: the hexahedral model and the tetrakaidecahedron (Kelvin cell). For flow resistivity calculations the solid frame is assumed to be rigid. The models are elongated in one direction to study the influence of micro-structural anisotropy on the macro level flow resistivity. To keep porosity constant, two different approaches are investigated. The first approach is to let strut thickness be uniform and adjust the volume of the cell to a constant ratio compared to the isotropic case. The second approach is to let the strut volume, and cell volume, be constant. For an anisotropic hexahedral cell with uniform strut thickness, the flow resistivity increases substantially with increasing height to width ratio for the hexahedral model, while the flow resistivity for the tetrakaidecahedron model with uniform strut thickness decreases with increasing height to width ratio. For both geometries and constant strut volume, the average flow resistivity is close to the same constant value. For uniform strut thickness the relative volume of anisotropic to isotropic volume is very important.