Low frequency sound insulation using

stiness control with honeycomb panels

C.F. Ng
*
, C.K. Hui
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hunghom, Hong Kong
Received 30 August 2005; received in revised form 27 November 2006; accepted 4 December 2006
Available online 20 February 2007
Abstract
A new honeycomb core design has been used to increase the stiness of the panel and applied to improve the noise transmission loss at
frequencies between 100 and 200 Hz. A model is presented to predict the transmission loss of the honeycomb panels based on the struc-
tural modal parameters. A new test specimen with ber reinforced plastic cores and face sheets had been used to investigate the eect of
stiness and damping on noise transmission loss. The measurements of noise transmission loss have been compared with data for com-
mon structural panels. The results show that the new core fabrication techniques using moulding to improve the noise transmission are
eective. In comparison to a cement panel of the same mass, the honeycomb panels have higher TL at low frequencies between 100 and
200 Hz due to higher stiness and damping. The honeycomb panels have more signicant vibration responses above 500 Hz but these are
limited by damping.
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sound insulation; Honeycomb panels; Bending resonance
1. Applications of honeycomb panels in sound insulation
Low frequency noise control in buildings is dicult due
to the weak sound insulation between 50 and 200 Hz for
most partitions, doors. Study of low frequency noise reduc-
tion is critical for building acoustics performance [1]. Sti
and light panels instead of heavy panels can be used to
improve the sound insulation but very few test data are
available.
Honeycomb panel design is the optimum design for high
stiness and light-weight sandwich panels. It is widely
applied in aerospace application and recently used in parti-
tions, oors, doors in high rise buildings. However, honey-
combs are not so widely used in structural dynamic
applications compared to visco-elastic sandwich panel
due to the higher cost. Current applications are limited to
noise and vibration insulation of equipment in launch vehi-
cles and noise insulation in aircraft [2,3].
Recent research by the author [4] has shown that a
cement surface sheet with Nomex paper honeycomb core
design can also provide additional noise control perfor-
mance. It was found that the honeycomb core could
increase the damping the structure and thus improve
the sound insulation at frequencies between 50 and
100 Hz. However, there was reduced sound insulation
due to vibration resonance at 125 Hz and the acoustic
insulation performance in the medium frequency region
between 250 and 1000 Hz was less than those of thin
and heavy metal plates due to the existence of local hon-
eycomb core shear resonance between 600 and 2000 Hz
[5].
The degraded performance of light-weight panels due
to resonances can be improved by increasing the stiness
and damping. Therefore analyses of the damping proper-
ties of honeycomb panels with various designs are essen-
tial for the enhancement of noise and vibration
0003-682X/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2006.12.001
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +852 2334 6389.
E-mail address: cecfng@polyu.edu.hk (C.F. Ng).
www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301
transmission [6]. However, there are few studies of the
actual improvement using increased stiness.
A double layered honeycomb design has been used to
increase the local resonance frequency while the static
strength remained the same [7]. This has been tested for
applications in automotive body and the improvement in
vibration reduction was found to be limited to frequencies
between 50 and 200 Hz.
In this paper, a honeycomb panel is fabricated by mould-
ing using glass-bre reinforced plastic for both the surface
sheets and the core. Unlike Nomex honeycomb panels,
the material used for the joints between core and surface
sheet are the same as those for the whole sheets and thus
the joints are continuous and homogeneous with other main
sheets. The eects of the added stiness and damping on the
noise/vibration response of this new panel are studied.
2. Transmission loss of the honeycomb panels
The noise transmission loss TL of a panel depends on its
mechanical impedance Z and h, the orientation of the inci-
dent sound wave [4]
TL 10 log
Z cos h
2qc
1

2
1
q is the density of air, c is acoustic speed in air.
At frequencies much less than the coincident frequency,
the panel impedance Z consists of mass term and stiness
term, and can be expressed as follows (assuming exp(j2pft)
time dependence):
Z j2pf q j
k
2pf
2
f is the frequency of sound, q is the mass per unit area of
the panel where for simply supported edges
k p
4
D
m
a
_ _
2

n
b
_ _
2
_ _
2
3
where a, b are the dimensions of panel, m, n are integers 1,
2,... and D is bending stiness.
D
Eh
3
121 m
2

4
h is the thickness of panel, v is the Poisson ratio.
For honeycomb sandwich constructions with identical
faces, the damping loss factor g can be introduced by using
the complex Youngs modulus E
*
= E(1 + jg) instead of
E in Eq. (4), and the complex bending stiness given in
Eq. (5) should be used in Eq. (3).
D

E1 jg
21 m
2

t
f
t
f
t
c

2
5
where t
f
, t
c
are the thickness of the faces and the core,
respectively and E is the Youngs modulus of elasticity of
the faces (neglecting core contributions). Substituting
Eqs. (3) and (5) into (2) yields
Z
gp
3
E
m
a
_ _
2

n
b
_ _
2
_ _
2
t
f
t
f
t
c

2
41 m
2
f
j2pf q
j
p
3
E
m
a
_ _
2

n
b
_ _
2
_ _
2
t
f
t
f
t
c

2
41 m
2
f
6
By considering that the normal resonances occur when the
second term equals to the third term on the right hand of
Eq. (6), it can be written as
Z 2gpqf
f
mn
f
_ _
2
j2pqf 1
f
mn
f
_ _
2
_ _
7
where f
mn

p
2
D
0
q
_ _1
2
m
a
_ _
2

n
b
_ _
2
_ _
the m, nth resonance
frequency
D
0

E
21 m
2

t
f
t
f
t
c

2
the bending stiness of the honeycomb sandwich panel.
Substituting Eq. (7) into Eq. (1) and lettingh = 0
0
yield
the normal-incidence TL
TL
0
10log 1
gpqf
qc
f
mn
f
_ _
2
_ _
2
_
_
_

pqf
qc
_ _
2
1
f
mn
f
_ _
2
_ _
2
_
_
_
8
For f > f
mn
, the resonance frequency, TL can be approxi-
mated by the mass law
TL
0
mass 10 log
pqf
qc
_ _
2
20 log q 20 log f 42
3. Increasing transmission loss by added stiness
Eq. (8) indicates that the contribution of the honeycomb
sandwich structure is positive even if the resonances occur
because the stiness and damping increased by honeycomb
sandwich structure add a real term to the panel impedance.
This result suggests another approach to the design of high
TL panel at low frequencies, specially below the rst reso-
nance frequency. The new design is to increase stiness and
TL can be increased in low frequency region.
For f < f
mn
, the resonance frequency, TL can be approx-
imated by the stiness law
TL
0
stiffness 10 log
pqf
qc
_ _
2
1
f
mn
f
_ _
2
_ _
2
_
_
_
_
_
_
TL
0
mass 10 log 1
f
mn
f
_ _
2
_ _
2
9
It can be seen that TL increases with f
mn
for constant f
and thus increases with the stiness of the panel.
Considering noise transmission for all incident angles
and the eects of mode shape on radiation eciency, the
average TL is
294 C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301
TL TL
0
5 R 10
where R = 10 log radiation eciency [8] and is about
10 dB between 100 and 1000 Hz for panels of
0.5 m 0.5 m cross section.
In this paper, to simplify calculations, Eq. (10) will be
only applied to the rst mode, m = 1, n = 1, second mode,
m = 1, n = 2 and third mode, m = 2, n = 2. The second and
third modes will have lower vibration responses and radia-
tion eciency due to the anti-symmetric mode shapes. The
resonance frequencies and damping factor have been
obtained from a base excitation test. The vibration tests
were conducted using base excitation with impact hammer
on the support edge. The vibration transmission is the ratio
of the vibration at the center to that of the edge of the
panel.
Theoretical results of eects of stiness on sound insula-
tion were provided elsewhere [8,9]. It was shown that the
transmission loss of a panel can be increased to 40 dB at
frequencies between 100 and 200 Hz below the rst bend-
ing resonance frequency. However, very few experimental
results [1012] to verify this are available. This is because
there are practical diculties in increasing the fundamental
frequencies of various panels to 200 Hz. The various mate-
rials are:
(1) Metal plate with stiener the addition of ve stien-
ers of 20 mm thick can reduce the acoustic radiation
by 20 dBfor 100200 Hz of a 1 mmsteel plate with size
0.5 m 0.5 m [10]. However, the damping was small
and acoustic radiation above 200 Hz increased due
to larger number of resonances from local vibration.
(2) Cement panel typical cement panels are less than
15 mm thick and the resonances are below 200 Hz
due to heavy mass density. There are diculties to seal
the edges due to the weight and irregular surfaces.
(3) Honeycomb panel the core are made of thin sheets
of Nomex paper and bonded to the face sheet by
adhesive. The joint exibility lowers the overall bend-
ing stiness compared with homogeneous panel.
Thus the bending stiness limits the resonances to
below 200 Hz for a 0.5 m 0.5 m panel [5].
A practical design approach is suggested here for which
the honeycomb core should be integrated with the face
sheet during the fabrication process.
4. Design of the new plastic honeycomb panel
Basically the proposed sandwich is a three-layered struc-
ture consisting of an upper and lower face skin and an
intermediate honeycomb core. At the interfaces, the core
and the face skin are glued together. The main role of the
face skins is to carry in plane and bending loads.
The main role of the core is to maintain the respective
distance between the face skins, thus ensuring a high bend-
ing stiness at low weight.
The face skins are laminates of ber reinforced plastics
or aluminum and the core is a regular honeycomb cell
structure made of very thin Nomex paper or aluminum
sheet.
High specic bending stiness (per unit mass) are
achieved with relative thin laminates but rather thick hon-
eycomb cores. The eect of the core is no longer only to
maintain the distance between the face skins but also to
contribute essentially to the overall in-plane and shear sti-
ness of the entire sandwich.
For this study, a honeycomb panel has been made
using glass-bre reinforced plastic for both the surface
sheets and the core. The conventional molding method
was applied to fabricate the honeycomb shaped cores
which were integrated to the face sheets. A plastic honey-
comb core can be made more easily than Nomex honey-
comb core due to the faster molding production but has
less proven applications for sound insulation. Thicker
and larger core can be made and thus the stiness will
be higher.
The honeycomb panel is of size 0.5 m 0.5 m with sim-
ply supported edges (Fig. 1). The panel is clamped between
Simply support
d
0.5m
x0.5m
Fig. 1. Honeycomb panel.
Thickness
1mm
Thickness
3mm
15mm
Fig. 2. Dimensions of honeycomb core.
C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301 295
narrow strips of metal bars on the edges and sealed with
rubber tapes. The thickness of the glass-bre reinforced
plastic surface sheets is 3 mm and that of the core is 1
mm (Fig. 2).The surface density is 16 kg per square m.
5. Vibration test on the honeycomb panel
The predicted and measured bending resonances of the
panel with simply supported edges are
First Second Third
Theory 210 525 840
Experiment 260 480 870
The dierences above are due to the restraints on rota-
tion of the edges of the xture.
The vibration tests were conducted using base excita-
tion. The vibration transmission is the ratio of the vibra-
tion at the center to that of the edge of the panel and the
results are shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen rst two bending
resonance are 260 Hz and 480 Hz. The maximum transmis-
sion of base vibration is 7 dB. There is a signicant reso-
nance response at 860 Hz with higher level than that at
260 Hz. It is found that the 860 Hz resonance is coupled
with the local vibration of individual cells. The eects of
local vibration can be signicant in the range 700
1400 Hz. The damping factor at 260 Hz is found to be 0.15.
6. Vibration test on the cement panel
The above test on honeycomb panel was conducted on a
cement panel of 10 mm thick with the same surface density
of honeycomb panel.
The predicted and measured bending resonances of the
panel with simply supported edges are
First Second Third
Theory 110 225 530
Experiment 140 200 470
The dierences above are due to the restraints on rota-
tion of the edges. The resonance frequencies are lower than
that of honeycomb panel.
The results of base excitation test in Fig. 4 shows that
the rst two bending resonances are at 140 Hz, 200 Hz.
The maximum transmission of base vibration is 27 dB.The
damping is lower than that of honeycomb panel. The
responses for modes with frequencies higher than 500 Hz
are much less signicant. No local vibration modes can
be found due to the homogeneous material. The damping
Fig. 3. Vibration transmission of plastic honeycomb panel.
296 C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301
factor at 140 Hz is found to be 0.03 and lower than that of
honeycomb panel.
7. Vibration test on the steel panel
The same test was conducted on a steel panel of 1 mm
thick to study the eects of low bending stiness on reso-
nance frequencies and responses. The results in Fig. 5 show
that there are many resonances between 24 and 500 Hz.
The maximum transmission of base vibration is 37 dB.
The damping is 0.003 which is much lower than that of
honeycomb panel.
8. Acoustic test on the honeycomb panel
Test were made according to ISO 140 using test on two
reverberant rooms to nd the transmission loss (TL) of the
specimen.
From the sound transmission graph in Fig. 6 it can be
seen that the dip at 250 Hz is due to a bending resonance.
The test results agree with theory derived in Eq. (9) above.
The TL between 100 and 200 Hz is controlled by stiness
and increases with decreasing frequency to 43 dB. The min-
imum TL at a resonance of 260 Hz is 17 dB and controlled
by damping. The dips in the 500 Hz band are due to the
second resonance and high radiation eciency. The dip
at 1.25 kHz is due to the local resonance eects and high
radiation eciency.
9. Acoustic test on the cement panel
Test were made according to ISO 140 using test on two
reverberant rooms to nd the transmission loss (TL) of the
specimen.
The results in Fig. 7 show that the transmission loss is
less than that of honeycomb panel between 100 and
250 Hz. The test results agree with theory derived in Eq.
(9) above. The TL between 100 and 125 Hz is controlled
by stiness and increases with reducing frequency to
36 dB. The dips in the 160 and 200 Hz bands are due to
bending resonances. The minimum TL at resonance of
160 Hz is 7 dB and controlled by damping. The TLs at
these resonance frequencies are thus lower than those of
honeycomb panel due to the lower damping.
Fig. 4. Vibration transmission of cement panel.
C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301 297
The dip in the TL at 2 kHz is due to high radiation e-
ciency at the coincidence frequency for the cement
materials.
The performance of cement panels are compared with
those of honeycomb panels in Table 1. The honeycomb
panels have higher TL in the low frequency region between
100 and 200 Hz due to higher stiness and higher damping.
The honeycomb panels have more signicant vibration
responses above 500 Hz but are limited by high damping.
10. Acoustic test on the steel panel
Tests have been carried out made according to ISO 140
to nd the transmission loss of the specimen.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
100
125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1000 1250 1600 2000 2500
Frequency, Hz
TL expt.
TL Theory
Fig. 6. Transmission loss of honeycomb.
Fig. 5. Vibration transmission of steel panel.
298 C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301
The results in Fig. 8 show that the transmission loss is
less than 6dB between 100 and 250 Hz.
Between 100 and 250 Hz, the transmission loss is much
less than those of honeycomb and cement panels due to the
many resonances.
11. Comparison with heavy building walls
The sound transmission data in Fig. 6 for the honey-
comb panel are compared with those for heavy building
walls in Fig. 9. The performance of the honeycomb panel
is higher than those of the building walls between 100
and 200 Hz although the mass per area is much smaller.
The mass per square metre for concrete is 230 kg. The
lower TL is due to the larger size (3 m 4 m) of the con-
crete slab tested and the fact that the coincidence frequency
of concrete of 135 mm thick is 125 Hz.
12. Acoustic test on the double wall design
Honeycomb panels can be used in double wall design
to improve structural, thermal and acoustic performances
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
100
125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1000 1250 1600 2000 2500
Frequency, Hz
TL expt.
TL Theory
Fig. 7. Transmission loss of cement.
Table 1
Comparison of honeycomb and cement panel
Cement panels Honeycomb panels
Thickness 10 mm 25 mm
Static strength Lower Higher
Damping mechanism Structural damping Joint friction
Damping magnitude 0.03 0.15
Lowest bending resonance 140 Hz 260 Hz
Local resonance Nil Yes
Transmission loss at resonance 7 dB 17 dB
Transmission loss at 100160 Hz 26 dB 43 dB
Fabrication Casting Molding
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
100
125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1000 1250 1600 2000 2500
Frequency, Hz
TL expt.
TL Theory
Fig. 8. Transmission loss of steel.
C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301 299
[12]. Tests were made with a sandwich panel with an
outer surface of 1 mm steel sheet and a 140 mm wide
cavity. Three dierent inner sheet were used: (1) 1 mm
steel (2) cement panel (3) plastic honeycomb panel. Tests
were made for the specimens of size 3 m 4 m according
to ISO 140. The results are shown in Fig. 10. It can be
seen that the honeycomb panel gives the best perfor-
mance for frequencies between 100 and 250 Hz. Also,
the performance at these frequencies is better than that
of a single honeycomb panel due to the double wall
design.
13. Conclusions
A simple theoretical model for predicting the trans-
mission loss of panels based on the structural modal
parameters has been veried by test results. The eect
of enhanced stiness and damping using thick molded
honeycomb cores has been studied theoretically and
experimentally. It has been shown that this design can
reduce the noise transmitted below the fundamental
bending resonance. In comparison to cement panel of
same mass, the honeycomb panels have higher TL i
between 100 and 200 Hz due to higher stiness and
damping. The honeycomb panels have more signicant
vibration responses above 500 Hz but these are limited
by damping. Therefore, for honeycomb panel design with
higher stiness, the damping must also be sucient to
control the resonances.
Acknowledgements
The authors like to acknowledge the support of the Uni-
versity Grant Committee (UGC) for the Project No.
POLYU5281/04 E.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
100 125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1000 1250
Frequency, Hz
honeycomb steel cement
Fig. 10. Transmission Loss for dierent inner panels for double wall system (outer panel-1 mm steel, cavity 140 mm).
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
100
125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1000 1250
Frequency, Hz
honeycomb
135mm concrete
Brick 50mm
Fig. 9. Transmission loss of honeycomb, 135 mm concrete and brick 50 mm.
300 C.F. Ng, C.K. Hui / Applied Acoustics 69 (2008) 293301
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