Sustainable sonic crystal made of resonating bamboo rods

The acoustic transmission coefficient of a resonant sonic crystal made of hollow bamboo rods is studied experimentally and theoretically. The plane wave expansion and multiple scattering theory (MST) are used to predict the bandgap in transmission coefficient of a non-resonant sonic crystal composed of rods without holes. The predicted results are validated against experimental data for the acoustic transmission coefficient. It is shown that a sonic crystal made from a natural material with some irregularities can exhibit a clear transmission bandgap. Then, the hollow bamboo rods are drilled between each node to create an array of Helmholtz resonators. It is shown that the presence of Helmholtz resonators leads to an additional bandgap in the low-frequency part of the transmission coefficient. The MST is modified in order to account for the resonance effect of the holes in the drilled bamboo rods. This resonant multiple scattering theory is validated experimentally and could be further used for the description and optimization of more complex resonant sonic crystals. (C) 2013 Acoustical Society of America. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4769783]