Acoustic Design of Lightweight Gas Turbine Enclosures

Acoustic enclosures for the gas turbine industry have to comply with a number of stringent safety requirements including structural strength, fire resistance, and sound insulation. This has led traditionally to heavy enclosure designs. Corrugated enclosure panels offer significant structural advantages because of their increased bending stiffness. Consequently, a corrugated panel of a given thickness can give the same structural strength as a flat panel of substantially greater weight and thickness. However, corrugated panels are intrinsically less effective as a sound insulator than flat panels of the same thickness. This paper examines the implications of corrugated, lightweight panels for acoustic enclosures. It illustrated that, by careful design, the inherent acoustical disadvantages of corrugated panels can be overcome so that thinner, lighter, and more cost-effective enclosures can be used without compromising the overall structural and acoustical design requirements.