Experimental characterization of three-dimensional Graphene’s thermoacoustic response and its theoretical modelling

Abstract

In the past decade, a lot of research has been conducted on the potential of carbon nanostructured materials to emit sound via thermoacoustics through both simulations and experiments. However, experimental validation of simulations for three-dimensional graphene (3D-C), which has a complicated 3D structure, has yet to be achieved. In this paper, 3D-C is synthesized via thermal chemical vapor deposition and its microstructure and quality tested using Scanning Electron Microscopy and Raman spectroscopy respectively. Then, a two temperature model is used to predict the effects of numerous parameters: frequency, input power, sample size, connection area, connection path, pores per inch, thickness, compression as well as the addition of a backing on the acoustic performance and temperature of the sample. The experimental results presented in this paper validate the predictions of the adopted two temperature model. The efficiency of 3D-C is then compared with results presented in other studies to understand how the presented 3D-C fared against ones from the literature as well as other carbon nanostructured materials.