Acoustic transmission in non-uniform ducts with mean flow, part I: The method of weighted residuals

Abstract

3n this and a companion paper the problem of transmission of sound through non-uniform ducts carrying a high speed subsonic compressible flow is approached using the method of weighted residuals (MWR) in the form of a modified Galerkin method and the finite element method (FEM). The intent of the investigation is to carry out a careful evaluation of these methods in this computationally difficult problem. To this end both MWR and FEM have been limited to in-core computer implementations to generate useful results with relatively modest computational requirements. This paper (Part I) details the MWR formulation and presents numerical results establishing the degree of accuracy of MWR as compared to exact eigenvalue calculations and approximate one dimensional transmission calculations. The comparison of MWR and FEM results is carried out in the companion paper (Part II).