A Chebyshev–Lagrangian method for acoustic analysis of a rectangular cavity with arbitrary impedance walls

Abstract

A general Chebyshev–Lagrangian method is proposed to obtain the analytical solution for a rectangular acoustic cavity with arbitrary impedance boundary conditions. The originality of the present paper is the successful attempt of applying orthogonal polynomials, such as Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind, to the analysis of a rectangular sound field with general wall impedance. The sound pressure is uniformly expressed as triplicate Chebyshev polynomial series which is independent in each direction. The Chebyshev polynomial series solution is obtained using the Rayleigh–Ritz procedure after considering the influence of boundary impedance on the cavity as the work done by the impedance surfaces in the Lagrangian function. The accuracy and reliability of the proposed method are validated against the analytical solutions and some numerical results available in the literature. Excellent orthogonality and complete properties of the Chebyshev polynomials ensure the rapid convergence, numerical stability, high accuracy of the current solution. The simplicity and low computational cost of the present approach make it preferable to obtain the results of complex models even in the relative high frequency range by choosing enough truncated terms in the sound pressure expression. Numerous cases with various uniform or non-uniform impedance boundary conditions are analyzed numerically and some of the results can be used as benchmark. It is shown that the impedance boundary condition can effectively influence or modify the acoustic characteristics and response of a cavity.