Investigation on acoustic characteristics of micro-speaker diaphragm according to corrugation depth using finite element analysis

Recent use of mobile phones as a multimedia device has increased the development of micro-speaker modules having high quality and a compact size. Micro-speakers use polymer diaphragms fabricated by the thermoforming process. To improve the sound quality, micro-speaker diaphragms are usually designed to contain a number of micro-corrugations. This study investigated the effects of the corrugation depth on the acoustic characteristics of the diaphragm, using finite element (FE) analysis. Structural FE analysis was performed to investigate the stiffness change according to the corrugation depth. Modal FE analysis was used to compare the change in natural frequencies for each case. Harmonic response analysis further investigated the resulting variation in acoustic power. The effects of the corrugation depth on the acoustic characteristics of the diaphragm were discussed by reviewing all the FE analysis results synthetically.