Analysis of the Effect of Circular Ring Baffles in Suppressor on Flow Field and Far Field Noise Levels at 9 mm Semi-Automatic Pistol

Abstract

A firearm generates complex phenomena in muzzle flow and modelling the flow field around the projectile has great importance on high-intensity noise prediction. The negative effects of noise can be reduced using a suppressor which can be internally or externally attached to the barrel of a firearm. The purpose of this paper is to numerically and experimentally investigate the effect of the number and distance of circular ring baffles in the suppressor on the flow field and far field noise levels. Calculations were carried out in two-dimensional, axisymmetric, transient conditions and Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy (FW-H) equations were solved to predict the far field noise. Nine cases including a gun without a suppressor, a suppressor without baffles, one, three, and five baffles which were placed at 20 mm intervals from the suppressor inlet, and one, three, five, seven, and nine baffles which were placed with equal intervals in the suppressor were simulated and compared; generations of noise during the shooting process were analyzed. The results showed that in the case without a suppressor, the peak sound pressure level was 156.1 dB at a 2.5 m distance, while this value decreased by nearly 7.6% in the case of the suppressor with seven baffles which has an average value of 144.2 dB. The results obtained here may provide a beneficial reference for predicting the muzzle noise and optimizing the number of baffles in the suppressor for small caliber gun systems.


Schematic view of geometries used in numerical analyses.
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Comparison of experimental and numerical SPL peak values in a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol without a suppressor.
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Change graphs of pressure with time at the suppressor outlet. (a) first configuration cases, and (b) second configuration cases.
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