A Practical Comparison of Finite Element and Boundary Element Formulations for Modeling Sound Radiation from Elastic Plates

Abstract

Modeling sound radiation from vibrating structures usually relies, at least in the ‘low’ frequency range, on boundary integral representations of the acoustic field. Either direct and indirect integral representations are available for that purpose and form the mathematical basis of related acoustic boundary element (BE) methods [Ciskowski and Brebbia, 1991]. Such formulations have been used for a long time by the acoustic community. Model size’s reduction and a priori verification of the Sommerfeld radiation condition are presented as key characteristics of BE methods. On the other hand, domain methods (like finite element (FE) methods) require an appropriate treatment of the radiation condition, involve usually a larger amount of data (as implied by the related volume mesh) but are characterized by sparse matrices and reduced calculation times.