| The work presented in this thesis is motivated by an earlier research that showed that double, offset-core honeycomb sandwich panels increased thermal resistance and, hence, decreased heat transfer through the panels. This result lead to the hypothesis that these panels could be used for acoustic insulation. Using commercial finite element modeling software, COMSOL Multiphysics, the acoustical properties, specifically the transmission loss across a variety of offset-core honeycomb sandwich panels, is studied for the case of a plane acoustic wave impacting the panel at normal incidence. The transmission loss results are compared with those of single-core honeycomb panels with the same cell sizes. The fundamental frequencies of the panels are also computed in an attempt to better understand the vibrational modes of these particular sandwich-structured panels. To ensure that the finite element analysis software is adequate for the task at hand, two relevant benchmark problems are solved and compared with theory. Results from these benchmark results compared well to those obtained from theory. Transmission loss results from the offset-core honeycomb sandwich panels show increased transmission loss, especially for large cell honeycombs when compared to single-core honeycomb panels. |
