Directionality of sound radiation from rectangular panels

Abstract

In this paper, the directionality of sound radiated from a rectangular panel, attached with masses/springs, set in a baffle, is studied. The attachment of masses/springs is done based on the receptance method. The receptance method is used to generate new mode shapes and natural frequencies of the coupled system, in terms of the old mode shapes and natural frequencies. The Rayleigh integral is then used to compute the sound field. The point mass/spring locations are arbitrary, but chosen with the objective of attaining a unique directionality. The excitation frequency to a large degree decides the sound field variations. However, the size of the masses and the locations of the masses/springs do influence the new mode shapes and hence the sound field. The problem is more complex when the number of masses/springs are increased and/or their values are made different. The technique of receptance method is demonstrated through a steel plate with attached point masses in the first example. In the second and third examples, the present method is applied to estimate the sound field from a composite panel with attached springs and masses, respectively. The layup sequence of-the composite panel considered the examples corresponds to the multifunctional structure battery material system, used in the micro air vehicle (MAV) (Thomas and Qidwai, 2005). The demonstrated receptance method does give a reasonable estimate of the new modes. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.