Acoustics response of granular porous material: experiment and modeling

Granular porous materials such as activated carbon have drawn increasing attention due to their good sound absorption performance at low frequency. However, some unique acoustical behaviors have been observed during sound absorption measurements of granular porous materials in impedance tubes: e.g., circumferential edge-constraint effects, level-dependent absorption behavior, and time-dependent absorption behavior. In order to explain these observations, a 1-dimensional poro-elastic model was first applied to describe the sound propagation in granules stacked in a cylindrical sample holder, as in a standing wave tube. Then this model was extended to a 2-dimensional finite difference (2DFD) model with depth-dependent stiffness of the granule stack considered by combining Janssen's model and Hertzian contact theory. The 2DFD model was validated with the measurements of the granular porous materials, and it was found that the 2DFD model is a powerful tool to analyze the acoustic response of granular porous material, thus providing a means of characterizing the granular materials. In the present work, the above-mentioned experimental observations and the 2DFD model are introduced, and the experiment results are analyzed with the 2DFD model. Finally some future work on granular porous materials is introduced.