Technical Paper
A Hybrid Method to Predict the Distribution of Vibro-Acoustic Energy in Complex Built-Up Structures
2011-05-17
2011-01-1703
Predicting the distribution of vibro-acoustic energy in complex built-up structures in the mid-to-high frequency regime is often a difficult task because “numerically exact” results obtained by Finite Element Method (FEM) may be of little practical value; the vibro-acoustic response of “identical” structures assembled as part of a manufacturing process is very sensitive to small changes in material parameters and/or variability in the shape of the structure. These differences may lead to large changes in the resonance spectrum and a full (and time expensive) FEM calculation for an individual sample has at best statistical significance. This problem becomes severe in the mid-frequency regime where the high-frequency techniques, such as Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA), are not yet available. Mid-frequency problems usually occur in structures with large variation of local wavelengths and/or characteristic scales.