Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

At first glance, it seems that modern, inexpensive additive manufacturing (AM) technologies can be used to produce innovative, efficient acoustic materials with tailored pore morphology. However, on closer inspection, it becomes rather obvious that for now this is only possible for specific solutions, such as relatively thin, but narrow-band sound absorbers. This is mainly due to the relatively poor resolutions available in low-cost AM technologies and devices, which prevents the 3D-printing of pore networks with characteristic dimensions comparable to those found in conventional broadband sound-absorbing materials. Other drawbacks relate to a number of imperfections associated with AM technologies, including porosity or rather microporosity inherent in some of them. This paper shows how the limitations mentioned above can be alleviated by 3D-printing double-porosity structures, where the main pore network can be designed and optimised, while the properties of the intentionally microporous skeleton provide the desired permeability contrast, leading to additional broadband sound energy dissipation due to pressure diffusion. The beneficial effect of additively manufactured double porosity and the phenomena associated with it are rigorously demonstrated and validated in this work, both experimentally and through precise multi-scale modelling, on a comprehensive example that can serve as benchmark.

double porosity, additive manufacturing, sound absorption, pressure diffusion, multi-scale modelling

The paper shows that acoustic materials with double porosity can be 3D printed with the appropriate design of the main pore network and the contrasted microporous skeleton. The microporous structure is obtained through the use of appropriate additive manufacturing (AM) technology, raw material, and process parameters. The essential properties of the microporous material obtained in this way are investigated experimentally. Two AM technologies are used to 3D print acoustic samples with the same periodic network of main pores: one provides a microporous skeleton leading to double porosity, while the other provides a single-porosity material. The sound absorption for each acoustic material is determined both experimentally using impedance tube measurements and numerically using a multiscale model. The model combines finite element calculations (on periodic representative elementary volumes) with scaling functions and analytical expressions resulting from homogenization. The obtained double-porosity material is shown to exhibit a strong permeability contrast resulting in a pressure diffusion effect, which fundamentally changes the nature of the sound absorption compared to its single-porosity counterpart with an impermeable skeleton. This work opens up interesting perspectives for the use of popular, low-cost AM technologies to produce efficient sound absorbing materials.