Validation of a medium-frequency computational method for the coupling between a plate and a water-filled cavity

The aim of this paper is the validation of a computation by a numerical method, normally adapted to the medium-frequency (MF) domain, of the strong coupling between an elastic structure (plate) and a cavity entirely filled with an internal acoustic viscous dense fluid (water). The method of computation does not lie in a modal approach (no need to extract the modal basis of the system) but it directly computes the frequency response of the system using a specific algorithm called the “Onera-MF method”.This method was developed to accurately calculate the response of complex systems in an MF broad band at a lower cost than standard modal method or direct step-by-step frequency method. The method can also be used for the low-frequency (LF) domain where modal densities of systems are low. The computation of the vibroacoustic response of the system lies in a finite element modelling of the overall system (structure and fluid) in which the coupling between the structure and the fluid (light or heavy) is directly taken into account within the formulation of the finite elements.A simple and well-known experimental case was chosen for validation: a parallelepipedic cavity entirely filled with water contained in a box defined by five rigid faces and closed at its end by an elastic clamped homogeneous plate.The validation is based on a comparison between measurement, the numerical computation and an analytical approach in the frequency band . Both the vibratory response of the plate and the acoustic pressure were compared. This study shows that the MF-method of computation used herein for this case also works in a modal domain.