Abstract:In order to study the influence of metal and composite materials on the sound insulation of fuselage panels, a statistical energy model for sound insulation was established, and its effectiveness was verified by the theoretical calculated results of the sound transmission loss of aluminum panels and the simulated results using the finite element simulation method. The statistical energy model is used to analyze the influence of different lay-up configuration of the composite panel on its sound insulation. Then, comparison was made on the sound insulation properties of a metal panel and a composite panel under two conditions: equal thickness, and equal surface density. At last, the damping layers were utilized to enhance the sound insulation properties of the composite panel. The results show that changes in the thickness of the unidirectional composite laminate and the number of the composite laminates have negligible effect on the sound insulation of composite panels. Furthermore, the sound insulation of the aluminum panel is much higher than that of the composite panel with the same thickness. When the surface density is the same, the sound transmission loss of the aluminum panel is higher than that of the composite panel in the frequency range higher than 2 500 Hz, and the sound transmission loss of these two is similar at other frequencies. Although the enhancement at other frequencies are limited, the sound insulation of composite panel with additional damping layers has increased by 1 dB, 4.1 dB and 18.6 dB at frequency of 2 500 Hz, 3 150 Hz and 4 000 Hz, respectively, compared with that without damping layers. This implies the effectiveness of using damping layers as an effective method to enhance the sound insulation of composite materials in civil aviation industry.