The use of a hybrid model to compute the nonlinear acoustic performance of silencers for the finite amplitude acoustic wave

In the present study, a hybrid method is proposed for predicting the acoustic performance of a silencer for a nonlinear wave. This method is developed by combining two models: (i) a frequency-domain model for the computation of sound attenuation due to a silencer in a linear regime and (ii) a wavenumber space model for the prediction of the nonlinear time-evolution of finite amplitudes of the acoustic wave in a uniform duct of the same length as the silencer. The present method is proposed under the observation that the physical process of the nonlinear sound attenuation phenomenon of a silencer may be decoupled into two distinct mechanisms: (a) a linear acoustic energy loss that owes to the mismatch in the acoustic impedance between reactive elements and/or the sound absorption of acoustic liners in a silencer; (b) a nonlinear acoustic energy loss that is due to the energy-cascade phenomenon that arises from the nonlinear interaction between components of different frequencies. To establish the validity of the present model for predicting the acoustic performance of silencers, two model problems are considered. First, the performance of simple expansion mufflers with nonlinear incident waves has been predicted. Second, proposed method is applied for computing nonlinear acoustic wave propagation in the NASA Langley impedance duct configuration with ceramic tubular liner (CT57). Both results obtained from the hybrid models are compared with those from computational aero-acoustic techniques in a time-space domain that utilize a high-order finite-difference method. Through these comparisons, it is shown that there are good agreements between the two predictions. The main advantage of the present method is that it can effectively compute the nonlinear acoustic performance of silencers in nonlinear regimes without time-space domain calculations that generally entail a greater computational burden.