Evaluation of acoustic performance of cascaded cylindrical micro-perforated panel

A cylindrical micro-perforated panel (MPP) can be used to absorb the sound of a flow system in a circular duct of a vacuum cleaner. A cascaded cylindrical MPP is a special class type where two cylindrical MPPs are arranged in a series to improve sound attenuation. The manufacturing of MPP primarily involves the machining of micro-perforations, because small holes are not readily made using injection moulding due to the complexity of the die, flow control of the molten polymer through the small orifices and dimensional stability, making it unsuitable for mass production. This limitation can be overcome with the use of additive manufacturing (AM) technology, where the micro-perforations can be designed and manufactured, with relatively larger tolerances. Experimental validation ensures that the manufactured prototype in this study is performed according to design. Results show that the transmission loss of the model and the experimental outcomes agree. The cascaded arrangement of the cylindrical MPP results in a wider effective frequency range and an increased transmission loss. Parametric studies of the combined effects of the perforation diameter, perforation ratio and the depth of air cavity on the diameter of the duct and length ratio are conducted using a transfer matrix method. A case study is demonstrated here in the design. Moreover, an AM of cascaded cylindrical MPP is performed to attenuate peak noise at 1650 Hz, where the optimum parameters of the cascaded cylindrical MPP are obtained using a genetic algorithm. The manufactured cascaded cylindrical MPP is installed on a vacuum cleaner duct, and the measurement of sound power level shows a reduction of 4 dB(A).