Sound insulation of the finite double-panel structure (DPS) inserted with a cylindrical shell array is investigated by varying the sound incidence direction to improve its applicability. The effects of the vibro-acoustic characteristics of its constituents on the sound transmission loss (STL) are estimated in one-third octave bands from 20 Hz to 5 kHz for different incidence conditions. It shows that the first acoustic mode in the direction parallel to two panels (longitudinal modes) produces both the sudden variation of sound insulation with frequency and a large dependency on the incidence angle. Mineral wools are placed on two boundaries perpendicular to the panels, and the sound insulation is explored for different thicknesses of the porous materials. An absorbent layer with a certain thickness (more than 30 mm in our work) sufficiently eliminates the longitudinal mode, resulting in the improvement in the sound insulation by more than 15 dB and the decrease of its large variation with incidence direction. STLs with varying shell thicknesses are also assessed. It shows that the natural vibrations of the thin shells can give an enhancement in sound insulation by more than 10 dB in the frequency range of 1600–3700 Hz, corresponding to constructive interference.

Nowadays, noise generated by devices is a serious issue in industry and in everyday life, because it may cause health damage to humans. In this research, a cubic rigid device casing built of double-panel thin steel walls is employed to reduce noise emitted from an enclosed noise source. Double-panel structure is used because of good sound insulation it provides. There exist three main groups of noise reduction methods, i.e. passive, semi-active and active. In this paper, a semi-active modification of double-panel structure is applied and examined. The bistable actuator (solenoid) mounted between incident and radiating plates changes its state due to applied constant voltage, causing the coupling of plates. Experimentally measured natural frequencies and modeshapes of the structure are compared to the simulation results. The influence of proposed modification on dynamical properties of the structure is analyzed and discussed.

An approach is presented to form and broaden the low-frequency band gap of the double panel structure (DPS) by using a locally resonant sonic crystal (LRSC) in this work. The LRSC is made of cylindrical Helmholtz resonators arranged on square lattice. Their designs are similar to a slot-type resonator, but have different depths of slot. Elongating the slit neck inward and distributing the depths of slots produce a broad local resonant band gap at low frequencies: an average insertion loss (IL) of 10.9 dB covering 520 Hz to 1160 Hz with a LRSC of 12 cm width. Next, the effect of porous material filled into the resonators on the local resonant band gap is evaluated. It is shown that filling of porous material into the resonators decreases the height and width of the local resonant band gap. Finally, the transmission losses (TLs) through the DPS with LRSC are calculated as a function of the incident angle of the sound wave for LRSC embedded in porous material and not. The results show that the porous material can be significantly reduce the incident angle dependency of TL through the DPS with LRSC.