3D Printing of Polymeric Multi-Layer Micro-Perforated Panels for Tunable Wideband Sound Absorption
1
Singapore Center for 3D Printing, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
2
Engineering Product Development Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Rd, Singapore 487372, Singapore
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Polymers 2020, 12(2), 360; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12020360
Received: 6 January 2020 / Revised: 30 January 2020 / Accepted: 3 February 2020 / Published: 6 February 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufacturing of Polymeric Materials)
The increasing concern about noise pollution has accelerated the development of acoustic absorption and damping devices. However, conventional subtractive manufacturing can only fabricate absorption devices with simple geometric shapes that are unable to achieve high absorption coefficients in wide frequency ranges. In this paper, novel multi-layer micro-perforated panels (MPPs) with tunable wideband absorption are designed and fabricated by 3D printing or additive manufacturing. Selective laser sintering (SLS), which is an advanced powder-based 3D printing technique, is newly introduced for MPP manufacturing with polyamide 12 as the feedstock. The acoustic performances of the MPPs are investigated by theoretical, numerical, and experimental methods. The results reveal that the absorption frequency bandwidths of the structures are wider than those of conventional single-layer MPPs, while the absorption coefficients remain comparable or even higher. The frequency ranges can be tuned by varying the air gap distances and the inter-layer distances. Furthermore, an optimization method is introduced for structural designs of MPPs with the most effective sound absorption performances in the target frequency ranges. This study reveals the potential of 3D printing to fabricate acoustic devices with effective tunable sound absorption behaviors and provides an optimization method for future structural design of the wideband sound absorption devices.
Keywords:
3D printing; selective laser sintering; micro-perforated panel; acoustic absorption; multi-layer structure
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Yang, W.; Bai, X.; Zhu, W.; Kiran, R.; An, J.; Chua, C.K.; Zhou, K. 3D Printing of Polymeric Multi-Layer Micro-Perforated Panels for Tunable Wideband Sound Absorption. Polymers 2020, 12, 360.
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