On the Sensitiveness of Absorption Coefficient to Changes in Material Parameters

An essential property of porous absorbers is the resistance to the incident sound wave, resulting in a damping effect. Damping results from the friction between air molecules and absorber pore‐walls. In practice, the known dependencies of the sound absorption coefficient are used in the design of absorbers. But not every material can be characterized by a one‐parameter model. The reliability of prediction can be improved by using detailed material models. Hence, additional material parameters, especially the pore geometry are needed. Since in practice the effort for determining material parameters must be minimized, this paper discusses the sensitivity of prediction of absorbers' performance depending on the influence of material parameters that are input for the prediction model chosen. (© 2009 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)