Active absorption to reduce the noise transmitted out of an enclosure

This paper investigates the potential of active absorbers for reducing low-frequency noise transmission through an enclosure. Active absorbers are intended to obtain a purely real prescribed impedance at the front face of a porous layer. This is achieved by an active control system which cancels the acoustic pressure at the rear face. The test bench was a simplified enclosure: a rigid-wall cavity coupled to a baffled elastic plate. The modeling of the system was based on an analytical modal approach. The purpose of this simulation was first to calculate the optimal impedance, providing maximal reduction in radiated power, and then to define a sub-optimal strategy for actual absorber production. Two 3-cell configurations were implemented on the test bench. Active control used a multichannel feedforward algorithm. In line with prediction, the absorbers provided a 5.5 dB overall reduction while covering only 2% of the cavity surface.