Use of the Normalized Design Parameters for Designing a Strip Speaker Operated by the Traveling-Wave Control Method

A strip speaker is the simplified panel speaker adopting a thin beam as the radiator, which is operated under the traveling-wave control method (TCM) with three actuators. The structural resonances are suppressed fundamentally by nullifying the reflected bending waves near the boundary, thus radiating a smooth sound spectrum in a wide frequency band. This study develops the design guidelines for such TCM-controlled strip speakers by investigating the effect of design variables on acoustic performances, such as the effective frequency range and the radiation efficiency. To this end, the acoustic performances are normalized by the size and physical properties of the beam so that a parametric study in the normalized domain can generalize the conditions for the desired acoustic performances. The result shows that the effective frequency range becomes wider when the beam material has a fast wave speed, and the radiation efficiency is enhanced as the beam density decreases. It is found that the two acoustic performances require a trade-off in selecting the actuator location and beam thickness. The suggested design procedure is validated using acrylic and aluminum beams having the same size. The aluminum beam has a faster wave speed, thus covering the effective bandwidth of 5800 Hz, 2.5 times wider than the acrylic case. On the other hand, the acrylic beam has five times higher radiation efficiency due to its low density. As a result, one can select the dimension and material of the beam appropriately to achieve the desired acoustic performance by using the suggested design method.