Experimental study on the noise reduction of an industrial forward-curved blades centrifugal fan

Many previous researches have concentrated on the noise of backward-curved (BC) blades and forward-curved (FC) multi-blade centrifugal fans. In this paper, an experimental study has been carried out to study the noise reduction of an industrial FC blades centrifugal fan. First of all, the performance and noise characteristics of the FC centrifugal fan were tested to compare the similarities and differences from those of BC blades and FC multi-blade centrifugal fans. And then, some different volute geometric configurations were carried out in order to study the effects of inclined volute tongue, impeller blade-tongue clearance, hub-volute clearance and their coupling effect to the performance and noise of the FC blades centrifugal fan. The aim of many different experimental tests is to validate whether the effects of different modifications to fan performance and noise are additive and to find a good impeller-volute matching to reduce the centrifugal fan noise without reducing performance. The experimental results show that a good coupled modification not only could reduce the fan noise but also could advance the fan performance and extend the operating range.     

Coupled FEM/BEM for control of noise radiation and sound transmission using piezoelectric shunt damping

In this paper, we present a coupled finite element/boundary element method (FEM/BEM) for control of noise radiation and sound transmission of vibrating structure by passive piezoelectric techniques. The system consists of an elastic structure (with surface mounted piezoelectric patches) coupled to external/internal acoustic domains. The passive shunt damping strategy is employed for vibration attenuation in the low frequency range. The originality of the present paper lies in evaluating the classically used FEM/BEM methods for structural–acoustics problems when taking account smart systems at the fluid–structure interfaces.     

Finite element reduced order model for noise and vibration reduction of double sandwich panels using shunted piezoelectric patches

This work concerns the control of sound transmission through double laminated panels with viscoelastic core using semi-passive piezoelectric shunt technique. More specifically, the system consists of two laminated walls, each one composed of three layers and called sandwich panel with an air cavity in between. The external sandwich panel has a surface-mounted piezoelectric patches. The piezoelectric elements, connected with resonant shunt circuits, are used for the vibration damping of some specific resonance frequencies of the coupled system. Firstly, a finite element formulation of the fully coupled visco-electro-mechanical-acoustic system is presented. This formulation takes into account the frequency dependence of the viscoelastic material. A modal reduction approach is then proposed to solve the problem at a lower cost. In the proposed technique, the coupled system is solved by projecting the mechanical displacement unknown on a truncated basis composed by the first real short-circuit structural normal modes and the pressure unknown on a truncated basis composed by the first acoustic modes with rigid boundaries conditions. The few initial electrical unknowns are kept in the reduced system. A static correction is also introduced in order to take into account the effect of higher modes. Various results are presented in order to validate and illustrate the efficiency of the proposed finite element reduced order formulation.     

Design of metaporous supercells by genetic algorithm for absorption optimization on a wide frequency band

The optimization of acoustic absorption by metaporous materials made of complex unit cells with 2D resonant inclusions is realized using genetic algorithm. A nearly total absorption over a wide frequency band can be obtained for thin structures, even for frequencies below the quarter wavelength resonances i.e., in a sub-wavelength regime. The high absorption performances of this material are due to the interplay of usual visco-thermal losses, local resonances and trapped modes. The density of resonant and trapped modes in this dissipative porous layer, is a key parameter for broadband absorption. The best configurations and critical coupling conditions are found by genetic algorithm optimization. Several types of resonators are included gradually in the studied configurations (split-rings, Helmholtz resonators, back cavities) with increasing complexity. The optimization leads to a metaporous structure with a 2-cm sub-wavelength layer thickness, exhibiting a nearly total absorption between 1800 Hz and 7000 Hz. The influence of the incidence angle on the absorption properties is also shown.