Testing facility concepts for the material characterization of porous media consisting of relatively limp foam and stiff fluid

Fluid filled foams are important components of acoustical systems. Most are made up of a stiff skeleton medium relative to the fluid considered, usually air. Biot’s theory of poroelasticity is appropriate for characterizing and modeling these foams. The use of relatively stiff fluid (such as water) and limp foam media pose a greater challenge. Recently modifications to Biot's theory have generated the mechanical relationships required to model these systems. Necessary static material properties for the model can be obtain through in vacuo measurement. Frequency dependent properties are more difficult to obtain. Traditional impedance tube methods suffer from fluid structure interaction when the bulk modulus of the fluid media approaches that of the waveguide. The current investigation derives the theory for, and investigates the feasibility of, several rigid impedance tube alternatives for characterizing limp foams in stiff fluid media. Alternatives considered include a sufficiently rigid impedance tube, a pressure relief impedance tube and, the most promising, a piston excited oscillating chamber of small aspect ratio. The chamber concept can recover the descriptive properties of a porous medium described by Biot’s theory or by complex-impedance equivalent-fluid models. The advantages of this facility are small facility size, low cost, and small sample size.