Active control of sound transmission through plates in a reverberant environment

Active control of sound transmission through an elastic plate placed between two reverberation chambers is studied experimentally. Active acoustic control is performed using piezoelectric sensors and actuators bonded to the plate. The control technique uses an adaptive control algorithm. Results are presented for harmonic excitation provided by a speaker in the source chamber at two resonant frequencies of the plate. Influence of different types of error sensors, varied actuator locations, and varied speaker locations are studied. Compared to microphone sensors in the receiving chamber, piezoelectric sensors are shown to be effective in reducing sound transmission through the plate. Average reduction of sound pressure level (SPL) on the order of 20 dB or 13 dB are achieved when the plate vibrates at mode (3,1) or (3,3). Microphone sensor locations are shown to influence the controlled sound field, those located where the direct sound field is dominant result in larger SPL reductions. SPL reductions are caused by two mechanisms: modal reduction and modal restructuring, and the dominance of either is shown to depend on actuator locations. When the sound field is non-diffuse, speaker locations influence the SPL and the SPL reduction by changing the plate's structural response. Also included in this work, previously developed one-dimensional (I-D) modal sensor theory for beams is used to develop modal sensors for a clamped plate. Two I-D modal sensors are applied to a fully clamped plate and each shown to observe a particular subset of plate vibration modes. Previous work developed the theory for two-dimensional (2-D) modal sensors for simply-supported plates. A necessary and sufficient condition for the spatial functions of 2-D modal sensors are developed for plates with arbitrary boundary conditions.