A new method for the prediction of vibration responses of thin plates coupled with discontinuous connections

Abstract

Due to the limitation caused by the assumption of ideal continuous line junctions between plates or the high computation cost, the existing methods cannot provide reliable prediction solutions of vibration responses of coupled plates with real connections, such as bolts and corner irons. To this end, a discontinuous energy finite element analysis (dEFEA) method with high accuracy is proposed to predict the vibration responses of discontinuously connected plates, which can revert the real connection. This method developes the coupling loss factors (CLFs) on the steady-state energy flow technique to characterize vibration transmission between plates with different connections. In addition, a discontinuous energy finite element equation of coupled plates is established to obtain the vibration responses of those. The efficacy of the dEFEA method is demonstrated by experiments and the method can improve the prediction accuracy of vibration, which is verified by the comparison between discontinuous and ideal continuous connections. To sum up, vibration transmission of connected structures varies greatly depending on the way of connection and cannot be simplified to a line connection.