Adaptive Concepts for Herschel–Quincke Waveguides

The enhancement of Herschel–Quincke (HQ) waveguides to incorporate adaptive capabilities is investigated. Passive HQ waveguides are known to provide noise attenuation in pipes and ducts at selective narrow frequency bands associated with their resonances. The approach to achieve adaptation is to produce a frequency shift in these resonances to allow targeting incoming tonal noise of variable frequency. The frequency shift is obtained by placing a variable cross-section constriction along the interior of the waveguide. Two adaptive devices are considered. The first consists of a ball with fixed diameter that can be axially displaced inside the waveguide. Then, the frequency tuning is obtained as a function of the ball position. The second device consists of a diaphragm at fixed axial location which can be deformed to obtain a variable cross section. In this case, the frequency shift is obtained as a function of the diaphragm deflection. The internal acoustic dynamics of the two devices are investigated both analytically and experimentally. The created constriction inside the HQ waveguide is modeled as a series of constant cross-section tube elements with small finite area jump between adjacent pieces. The model is validated by comparing the predicted dynamics with experimental data from an extended impedance tube setup based on the two-microphone technique. Finally, attenuation predictions on a one-dimensional pipe are presented in order to illustrate the performance of the proposed adaptive HQ waveguides.