Design and Acoustic Properties of Novel Embedded Honeycomb Structures

Honeycomb composites find broad applications in domains such as aerospace, aeronautics, and transportation owing to their exceptional mechanical and acoustic properties. This paper presents three innovative embedded honeycomb (ECH) structures utilizing hybrid strategies are developed, and their acoustic performance is examined. Utilizing a structural acoustics finite element analysis approach, simulations were conducted to assess the natural frequencies, sound transmission loss (STL), and sound pressure field distribution of the sandwich panels, with comparisons made to traditional sandwich panels. The computational results indicate that the honeycomb units significantly enhance the acoustic performance of the materials. Notably, with an increase in the number of connections, demonstrating an average STL improvement of 4.46 dB over the original sandwich panel structure. Moreover, by altering the size of the circular nodes and the thickness of the walls, the soundproofing capabilities of the sandwich panels can be improved further. As the radius of the circular nodes increases, different ECH sandwich panels exhibit varying fluctuations in sound transmission loss. Additionally, with an increase in thickness, the average STL of the different ECH panels showed an increase ranging from 4.0% to 16.6%, significantly enhancing the noise suppression capabilities of the ECH structures. The novel embedded honeycomb (ECH) structures provide valuable insights into improving the vibration and sound insulation performance of honeycomb sandwich panels, highlighting that the number of connections, the radius of the nodes, and wall thickness are all crucial factors influencing the sound insulation effectiveness of the sandwich panels.