Our team at IPS Perforating, Inc. has the right equipment and experience to perforate just about any material for any application, and one of the most popular products we help create is perforated acoustic panels. If you want to use such panels in your building design, simply bring us the material you want to use, and we’ll take care of the rest. In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the science behind perforated acoustic panels to help you understand how they dampen sound.
- Sound Waves – Before you can understand how perforated acoustic panels work, you first need to understand the science of sound waves. Every time you pluck a guitar string, for example, the movement of the string causes the air molecules around it to move as well. This creates areas of low and high-density air similar to the ripples in a pond, and when those ripples hit your eardrums, your brain interprets it as sound.
- Sound Dampening – Next, you need to know that the key to dampening a sound is to either absorb its waves or break them up. Soft materials like upholstery and carpet help dampen sound in the first way—once the air ripples hit the material, their energy is absorbed, rather than bouncing back. Perforated acoustic panels, on the other hand, work in the second way. When sound waves strike the holes in the surface, they break up into many smaller waves that go in different directions. Each smaller wave has only a fraction of the energy of the original, so the sound dies out quickly rather than echoing around the space.