Acoustic modeling of an air cleaner filter in the engine intake system

자동차 흡기계 공기 여과기 필터의 음향학적 모델

The air filter in engine intake system has a function of filtrating the dirt in the scavenging air as well as attenuating the noise. The noise attenuation within the air cleaner filter, however, has been regarded as negligible by the field engineers. In this paper, for the analysis of the acoustical performance of air filter, an acoustical model was suggested and the characteristics of air filter system were investigated. Fibrous structure of the filter element was modeled as a micro-perforated panel using the flow resistivity and porosity. The pleated geometry of the filter element was modeled as two coupled ducts that have permeable walls, in which each duct area was assumed being constant. Using such simplified geometry, a mathematical model was developed for the sound propagation within a narrow duct system. Visco-thermal effect was considered in modeling the sound propagation through such tubes; the filter box was modeled as a rigid rectangular box. By combining two models, a four-pole transfer matrix was derived. For the validation purpose, transmission loss was measured for a plastic rectangular box containing an air filter. A noticeable effect of the air filter element was observed by including the filter into the box. Comparing the predicted and measured data, we found that the predicted TL agrees well with experimental results, in particular, in magnitude and frequency at TL troughs.