Sound Transmission through Two Concentric Cylindrical Sandwich Shells

Abstract

This paper solves the problem of sound transmission through a system of two infinite concentric cylindrical sandwich shells. The shells are surrounded by external and internal fluid media and there is fluid (air) in the annular space between them. An oblique plane sound wave is incident upon the surface of the outer shell. A uniform flow is moving with a constant velocity in the external fluid medium. Classical thin shell theory is applied to the inner shell and first-order shear deformation theory is applied to the outer shell. A closed form for transmission loss is derived based on modal analysis. Investigations have been made for the impedance of both shells and the transmission loss through the shells from the exterior into the interior. Results are compared for double sandwich shells and single sandwich shells. This study shows that: (1) the impedance of the inner shell is much smaller than that of the outer shell so that the transmission loss is almost the same in both the annular space and the interior cavity of the shells; (2) the two concentric sandwich shells can produce an appreciable increase of transmission loss over single sandwich shells especially in the high frequency range; and (3) design guidelines may be derived with respect to the noise reduction requirement and the pressure in the annular space at a mid-frequency range.