Active noise control for cylindrical shells using a sum of weighted spatial gradients (WSSG) control metric

Abstract

There are a number of applications involving cylindrical shells where it is desired to attenuate the acoustic power radiated from the shell, such as from an aircraft fuselage or a submarine. In this paper, a new active control approach is outlined for reducing radiated sound power from structures using a weighted sum of spatial gradients (WSSG) control metric. The structural response field associated with the WSSG has been shown to be relatively uniform over the surface of both plates and cylindrical shells, which makes the control method relatively insensitive to error sensor location. It has also been shown that minimizing WSSG is closely related to minimizing the radiated sound power. This results in global control being achieved using a local control approach. This paper will outline these properties of the WSSG control approach and present control results for a simply supported cylindrical shell showing the attenuation of radiated sound power that can be achieved.