An electroacoustic method for measuring airflow resistivity of porous sound-absorbing materials

Abstract

In this paper, a method for measuring the airflow resistivity of air-saturated porous sound-absorbing materials is presented. The method is based on a modification of the previous device developed by Dragonetti et al. The approach used in the present work involves a cavity and a Helmholtz resonator that are coupled through a loudspeaker so that the complete system behaves as a fourth-order symmetrical band-pass loudspeaker system. After a straightforward calibration, the airflow resistivity of a material sample is indirectly estimated from the direct measurement of the total electric impedance at the loudspeaker connection terminals. In this way, the use of microphones is not necessary, which makes its implementation very simple and inexpensive. Experimental results obtained with the present method agree well with those obtained through a standardized method as long as the values of the material’s airflow resistance are not too high.