Numerical and experimental validation of variance prediction in the statistical energy analysis of built-up systems

In the statistical energy analysis (SEA) approach to vibration modeling, a complex system is represented as an assembly of coupled subsystems, and the method leads to the prediction of the vibrational energy level of each subsystem. The averaging procedures implicit in the technique imply that the predicted energy is the mean value taken over an ensemble of random structures, such as a set of vehicles leaving a production line. Recently, a new method has been developed to allow the ensemble variance, in addition to the mean, to be predicted within the context of SEA, and the present paper concerns further extension and validation of this work. The theoretical extension concerns the variance of the energy density at a single point in any of the subsystems, and the validation includes both simulation and experimental studies. The simulation results concern plate assemblies, while experimental results are presented both for a single-plate and for a cylinder-plate structure. In each case an ensemble of random structures has been generated by adding small point masses at random locations on the structure. In general, good agreement between the predictions and the validation results is observed.     

Predicting sound power radiation from built-up structures using statistical energy analysis

Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) methods have been used in conjunction with energy accountancy ideas to develop a technique for the prediction of sound power radiation from machinery and other built-up structures. The methods enable calculation and optimization of the changes in noise radiation associated with modifications to individual parts of a coupled structure. As an initial exercise the techniques have been applied to predict the noise radiation from a coupled system composed of two plates welded at right angles. The predicted noise radiation is compared with values obtained from direct measurements by the surface velocity technique and agreement generally within 2 or 3 dB on overall level is obtained.     

Dynamical energy analysis for built-up acoustic systems at high frequencies

Standard methods for describing the intensity distribution of mechanical and acoustic wave fields in the high frequency asymptotic limit are often based on flow transport equations. Common techniques are statistical energy analysis, employed mostly in the context of vibro-acoustics, and ray tracing, a popular tool in architectural acoustics. Dynamical energy analysis makes it possible to interpolate between standard statistical energy analysis and full ray tracing, containing both of these methods as limiting cases. In this work a version of dynamical energy analysis based on a Chebyshev basis expansion of the Perron-Frobenius operator governing the ray dynamics is introduced. It is shown that the technique can efficiently deal with multi-component systems overcoming typical geometrical limitations present in statistical energy analysis. Results are compared with state-of-the-art hp-adaptive discontinuous Galerkin finite element simulations.     

Response probability distribution of built-up vibro-acoustic systems

The vibro-acoustic response of built-up structures, consisting of stiff components with low modal density and flexible components with high modal density, is sensitive to small imperfections in the flexible components. In this paper, the uncertainty of the response is considered by modeling the low modal density master system as deterministic and the high modal density subsystems in a nonparametric stochastic way, i.e., carrying a diffuse wave field, and by subsequently computing the response probability density function. The master system's mean squared response amplitude follows a singular noncentral complex Wishart distribution conditional on the subsystem energies. For a single degree of freedom, this is equivalent to a chi-square or an exponential distribution, depending on the loading conditions. The subsystem energies follow approximately a chi-square distribution when their relative variance is smaller than unity. The results are validated by application to plate structures, and good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations is found.     

非保守耦合系统的统计能量分析原理

传统的统计能量分析(SEA)理论不能解决非保守耦合系统的能量分析问题。本文在非保守耦合振子的能量分布与功率流特征的研究基础上,推导了互不相关随机激励条件下非保守耦合系统的功率平衡方程式及各有关功率项的计算式,建立了非保守耦合系统的统计能量分析理论。研究结果表明,保守耦合仅是非保守耦合的一个特例,耦合阻尼对非保守耦合系统的能量分布和功率流的特征有着显著的影响,只有在耦合阻尼远小于系统内阻尼时这种影响才可近似忽略。作为理论的一个应用实例,本文对非保守耦合板的能量问题进行了理论和实验研究。     

The prediction of sound transmission through buildings using statistical energy analysis

Measurements were carried out on a building to evaluate the uses of statistical energy analysis for determining sound transmission performance. Coupling loss factors were measured and compared with predicted values. It was found that, in general, good agreement was obtained. The coupling loss factors were also used to calculate the sound pressure level, or surface velocity, of each subsystem in the building for a number of different sources. Comparison with the measured results gave an average error of 4 dB. Some large errors were obtained but these were due mainly to the omission of airborne flanking paths from the SEA model or due to the breakdown of the theory for specific coupling loss factors.     

Finding the dominant energy transmission paths in statistical energy analysis

A key issue for noise, vibration and harshness purposes, when modelling the vibroacoustic behaviour of a system, is that of determining how energy is transmitted from a given source, where external energy is being input, to a target where energy is to be reduced. In many situations of practical interest, a high percentage of the transmitted energy is driven by a limited set of dominant paths. For instance, this is at the core of the existence of transmission loss regulations between dwellings. In this work, it is shown that in the case of a system modelled with statistical energy analysis (SEA), the problem of ranking dominant paths can be posed as a variation of the so-called K shortest path problem in graph theory. An algorithm for the latter is then modified and adapted to obtain the sorted set of K dominant energy transmission paths in a SEA model. A numerical example to show its potential for practical applications is included.     

Response function theory for far-from-equilibrium statistical systems

A formalism to determine the response function of a sample in conditions far from thermal equilibrium is presented. It consists in a generalization of scattering theory coupled to the statistical theory of irreversible processes, the nonequilibrium statistical operator method, developed by Zubarev. The scattering cross section is expressed in terms of double-time correlation functions, which are related to appropriate nonequilibrium thermodynamic Green's functions. The latter are also used to treat generalized transport equations, and, as an illustration, the method is applied to the study of the time-resolved Raman spectroscopy of a photoexcited semiconductor plasma.     

Validity diagrams of statistical energy analysis

This paper is concerned with the validity domain of statistical energy analysis (SEA) which is defined in terms of four criteria. The mode count N and the modal overlap M must be high, the normalized attenuation factor and the coupling strength γ must be small. The application of dimensional analysis on the governing equations of plates gives the space of dimensionless parameters in which the validity domain of SEA must be delimited. This domain is discussed on the basis of geometry of the surfaces delimiting it. The diagrams of validity of SEA are introduced and discussed. A numerical simulation on a couple of rectangular plates coupled along one edge illustrates the theoretical approach.     

Acoustic response behaviour of panels mounted with equipment and its prediction using statistical energy analysis

Responses of non-uniform panels, like equipment panels of spacecraft, are not presently estimated using Statistical Energy Analysis. It is demonstrated that by treating the equipment as separate subsystems, with appropriate coupling loss factors for their connectivity, the response levels of the equipment can be estimated. The coupling loss factors are determined by the wave attenuation caused by the changes in structural properties introduced by the equipment. The estimated responses are valid at locations away from the boundary, in this case interface of the equipment. Information on the vibration levels at the interface of the equipment is necessary, especially to arrive at the random vibration loads of the equipment. A technique is developed to predict the vibration levels at locations at any distance from the interface of the equipment and validated by experiments. The prediction model is based on the interference pattern of the bending waves due to the reflection at the boundaries. It is seen that the existing techniques are suitable in estimating the responses of equipment only if the equipment behaves like mass attached at a point. But the technique developed in this study predicts the responses of the equipment that have large interface area.     

Sound transmission using statistical energy analysis

Statistical energy analysis is used to predict the sound transmission loss, the radiation resistance and the vibration amplitude of a partition. Agreement between theory and experiment is shown to be good. The “mass-law” sound transmission is seen to be due to non-resonant modal vibration while the increased transmission in the coincidence region is seen to be due to resonant modal vibration. The observed vibration amplitude is also shown to be due to resonant modes. The previously observed discrepancy between the values of vibration amplitude derived from the mass law and those observed experimentally which has been described in the literature [1 ] is thus satisfactorily explained.     

Finite element distributions in statistical theory of energy levels in quantum systems

The probability density functions of the three-point finite elements of the three adjacent energy levels for the three-level quantum system are introduced as a supplementary characteristics of quantum chaos. The three-level quantum system is studied. The probability density functions of the second difference and asymmetrical three-point first finite element are computed for the three-dimensional Gaussian orthogonal ensemble GOE(3), the three-dimensional Gaussian unitary ensemble GUE(3), the three-dimensional Gaussian symplectic ensemble GSE(3), as well as for the Poisson ensemble PE.     

Extension of the statistical modal energy distribution analysis for estimating energy density in coupled subsystems

The present article deals with an extension of the Statistical modal Energy distribution Analysis (SmEdA) method to estimate kinetic and potential energy density in coupled subsystems. The SmEdA method uses the modal bases of uncoupled subsystems and focuses on the modal energies rather than the global energies of subsystems such as SEA (Statistical Energy Analysis). This method permits extending SEA to subsystems with low modal overlap or to localized excitations as it does not assume the existence of modal energy equipartition. We demonstrate that by using the modal energies of subsystems computed by SmEdA, it is possible to estimate energy distribution in subsystems. This approach has the same advantages of standard SEA, as it uses very short calculations to analyze damping effects. The estimation of energy distribution from SmEdA is applied to an academic case and an industrial example.     

A hybrid approach for predicting the distribution of vibro-acoustic energy in complex built-up structures

Finding the distribution of vibro-acoustic energy in complex built-up structures in the mid-to-high frequency regime is a difficult task. In particular, structures with large variation of local wavelengths and/or characteristic scales pose a challenge referred to as the mid-frequency problem. Standard numerical methods such as the finite element method (FEM) scale with the local wavelength and quickly become too large even for modern computer architectures. High frequency techniques, such as statistical energy analysis (SEA), often miss important information such as dominant resonance behavior due to stiff or small scale parts of the structure. Hybrid methods circumvent this problem by coupling FEM/BEM and SEA models in a given built-up structure. In the approach adopted here, the whole system is split into a number of subsystems that are treated by either FEM or SEA depending on the local wavelength. Subsystems with relative long wavelengths are modeled using FEM. Making a diffuse field assumption for the wave fields in the short wave length components, the coupling between subsystems can be reduced to a weighted random field correlation function. The approach presented results in an SEA-like set of linear equations that can be solved for the mean energies in the short wavelength subsystems.     

A quantitative criterion validating coupling power proportionality in statistical energy analysis

The response of two general spring-coupled elements is investigated to develop a unifying approach to the weak coupling criterion in Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA). First, the coupled deterministic equations of motion are expressed in the bases given by the uncoupled elements’ eigenmodes. Then, an iterative solution is expressed as a succession of exchanges between elements, where uncoupled motion provides the start approximation, converging if the ‘coupling eigenvalue’ is less than unity, in which case coupling is said to be weak. This definition is related to whether response is ‘local’ or ‘global’, encompassing a number of previously defined coupling strength definitions, applying for deterministically described structures. A stochastic ensemble is defined by that its members are equal to the investigated structure but the elements have random frequencies. It is required that the coupling eigenvalue be less than unity for all members of the ensemble. This requirement generates the title subject of the article: ‘the modal interaction strength’. It is similar to the previously defined coupling strength criterion characterising the ensemble average energy flow in uni-dimensional waveguides. Finally, SEA models are formulated in terms of the uncoupled elements’ modal data.     

A variational method from the variance of energy

A variational method is studied based on the minimum of energy variance. The method is tested on exactly soluble problems in quantum mechanics, and is shown to be a useful tool whenever the properties of states are more relevant than the eigenvalues. In quantum field theory the method provides a consistent second-order extension to the Gaussian effective potential. PACS. 03.65.-w, 11.10.-z, 05.30.-d Received: 28 June 2005, Published online: 13 September 2005