Energy flow analysis and design sensitivity of structural problems at high frequencies

The design sensitivity formulation of an energy finite element method is presented using the direct differentiation and adjoint variable methods. The continuum method is used to derive the design sensitivity equation of the energy flow equation, whereas the discrete method is used to calculate the variation of the coupling relation. For design variables, material property, panel thickness, and structural shape are taken into account, in addition to the structural damping factor. The design variable's effect on the power transfer coefficient is discussed in detail. Even if the system matrix equation is not symmetric, the adjoint problem is solved using the same factorized matrix from response analysis. Design sensitivity results calculated from the proposed method are compared to the finite difference sensitivity results with a good agreement.