A note on a circular panel sound absorber with an elastic boundary condition

Panel sound absorbers are typically used to absorb low-frequency noise in concert halls, auditoriums, recording studios, and other architectural applications. These systems are composed of flexible panels mounted over an air space that can be either partly or completely filled with a porous material. In this paper, a theoretical model is derived for predicting the sound-absorption coefficient of a cylindrical low-frequency absorber made of a circular plate. The theory takes into account the mass, bending stiffness, damping loss and the elastic boundary condition of the circular plate. The effects of the stiffness of an air-back cavity and of partially adding a porous material into the cavity are also considered. It is observed that the low-frequency resonances of such a system are dependent upon the clamping condition, the width of the air-back cavity, and mechanical properties of the plate. There is good agreement between theoretical and experimental results.