Sound absorption by Menger sponge fractal.

For the purpose of investigation on acoustic properties of fractals, the sound absorption coefficients are experimentally measured by using the Menger sponge which is one of typical three-dimensional fractals. From the two-microphone measurement, the frequency range of effectively absorbing sound waves is shown to broaden with degree of fractality, which comes from the fractal property of the homothetic character. It is shown that experimental features are qualitatively explained by an electrical equivalent circuit model for the Menger sponge.