Investigation of Refractory Foam for Silencing Small IC Engines

With the need for stealth in defense applications steadily increasing, noise reduction continues to play an important role in the world of aeronautics. With the ever increasing number of small UAV flight vehicle designs and their stringent weight requirements, acoustic solutions become progressively more complex. This book investigates the use of refractory foam, a new class of porous material, for designing effective silencers for small IC engines. The solution must be lightweight, compact, conformable, and capable of handling the rigors of flight. Throughout the course of this research, many designs were fabricated to take advantage of refractory foam technology. The results proved refractory foam to be a superior broadband noise absorber that can survive harsh flight environment. Silencer designs using this material proved advanced in the areas of noise reduction, weight, size, and backpressure. The final silencer design boasted an A- weighted overall sound pressure level reduction of 12.1 dBA. This result was accomplished using nearly half the volume required by other designs to attain similar results.

Autorentext

I attended Tennessee Tech for undergraduate studies and Virginia Tech for my master work in Mechanical Engineering. After leaving VT, I spent a year in Austin doing youth ministry. I currently reside in Nashville with my wife Lori and daughter Lyla, and work at DSM. DSM specializes in piezoelectric actuators, motors, and drive electronics.