This paper proposes to reduce the radiation of a sound source inside a cavity through the baffled opening by using an array of loudspeakers and microphones. The system is called a planar virtual sound barrier because it acts like a concrete sound barrier to block the transmission of sound but does not affect light and air circulation. An analytical model for the planar virtual sound barrier is developed based on the modal superposition method to calculate the sound field in and outside a rectangular cavity with a baffled opening. After the model is verified with numerical simulations, a performance study of the planar virtual sound barrier is carried out based on the proposed analytical model, and then the results are confirmed by experiments. The mechanisms of the planar virtual sound barrier are investigated and it is found that three mechanisms work together in the system, including changing the impedance of the primary source, modal control, and modal rearrangement. It is also found that there exist some frequencies where the sound cannot be controlled if all the secondary sources are on the same plane parallel to the opening, and the reasons behind the phenomenon are explained.

It has been demonstrated that a single shunted loudspeaker can be used as an effective low frequency sound absorber in a duct, but many shunted loudspeakers have to be used in practice for noise reduction or reverberation control in rooms, thus it is necessary to understand the performance of an array of shunted loudspeakers. In this paper, a model for the parallel shunted loudspeaker array for multi-tone sound absorption is proposed based on a modal solution, and then the acoustic properties of a shunted loudspeaker array under normal incidence are investigated using both the modal solution and the finite element method. It was found that each shunted loudspeaker can work almost independently where each unit resonates. Based on the interaction analysis, multi-tone absorbers in low frequency can be achieved by designing multiple shunted loudspeakers with different shunt circuits respectively. The simulation and experimental results show that the normal incidence sound absorption coefficient of the designed absorber has four absorption peaks with values of 0.42, 0.58, 0.80, and 0.84 around 100 Hz, 200 Hz, 300 Hz, and 400 Hz respectively.

We propose a virtual sound barrier system that blocks sound transmission through openings without affecting access, light and air circulation. The proposed system applies active control technique to cancel sound transmission with a double layered loudspeaker array at the edge of the opening. Unlike traditional transparent glass windows, recently invented double-glazed ventilation windows and planar active sound barriers or any other metamaterials designed to reduce sound transmission, secondary loudspeakers are put only along the boundaries of the opening, which provides the possibility to make it invisible. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate its feasibility for broadband sound control, especially for low frequency sound which is usually hard to attenuate with existing methods.

It has been demonstrated that a staggered window achieves better noise reduction performance than a traditional single glazing one at middle to high frequencies while maintaining a degree of natural ventilation. There is, however, little improvement in the low frequency range. In contrast, this work proposes to apply coiled-up silencers consisting of coupled tubes on the side walls of staggered windows to obtain noise attenuation in a broad band, especially in the low frequency range. Each element in the silencer consists of two coupled tubes with different cross sections so that noise at more frequencies can be attenuated than that with a uniform cross section. The simulation results show that 8.8 dB overall insertion loss can be obtained between 100 and 500 Hz after applying a combination of silencers designed at 7 different frequencies, and the insertion loss of the staggered window is increased from 6.7 to 15.6 dBA between 100 and 2000 Hz for normal incident traffic noise with the proposed silencers installed. The design is validated by the experiments with a 1:4 scale down model.

Previous work has demonstrated that installing secondary sources at the edge of a cavity opening can reduce sound radiation through it, but the mechanisms are not clear, which is investigated in this paper by using the modal decomposition method. It is found that a double layer edge system achieves better performance than a single layer system because secondary sources at the edge of the same layer cannot excite some modes effectively and those at different heights compensate this. There exists an upper limit frequency for the systems with boundary installed secondary sources, which is mainly decided by the length of the short side of the opening. More secondary source layers at the edge will increase the upper limit frequency.