Experimental and numerical analysis of an air cleaner's acoustic performance

To improve acoustic performance of an air cleaner system, both experimental and theoretical studies were carried out. The air cleaner's acoustic numerical model was built by finite element methods (FEM). Acoustic parameters of filter paper imported in the FEM model were calculated according to experiential formulas. Based on the models, the cleaner's acoustic character of transmission loss (TL) was computed. To verify the numerical results, TL results of the real air cleaner with or without filter paper were tested by four-microphone transferring function method. The experimental results show that the filter paper influence acoustic performance of the air cleaner significantly, especially in mid and high frequency band, and should be considered in numerical simulation. Comparisons between experimental and numerical results show that the numerical model is accurate enough to be used in multi-scheme acoustic optimization. Based on our study, TL results of two schemes were calculated and analyzed, which is useful to the air cleaner's final design decision.