A Machine Learning Based Prediction Model for the Sound Absorption Coefficient of Micro-Expanded Metal Mesh (MEMM)

Recently, micro-perforated panels (MPP) have become a popular sound absorbing material in the field of architectural acoustics. However, the cost of MPP is still high for the commercial market in Taiwan, and MPP is still not very popular compared to other sound absorbing materials and devices. The objective of this study is to develop a prediction model for MEMM via a machine learning approach. An experiment including 14 types of MEMM was first carried out in a reverberation room based on ISO 354. To predict the sound absorption coefficient of the MEMM, the capability of three conventional models and three machine learning (ML) models of the supervised learning method were studied for the development of the prediction model. The results showed that in most conventional models, the sound absorption coefficient of using an equivalent perimeter had the best agreement compared with other parameters, and the root mean square error (RMSE) between prediction models and experimental data were around 0.2~0.3. However, the RMSE of all ML models was less than 0.1, and the RMSE of the gradient boost model was 0.033 in the training sets and 0.062 in the testing sets, which showed the best agreement with the experiment data.