Effects of nearfield waves and phase information on the vibration analysis of curved beams

Abstract

At high frequencies, energy methods such as the statistical energy analysis and the power flow analysis have been popularly used to predict the averaged responses of vibro-acoustic subsystems. Usually, these energy methods ignore flexural nearfield components and phase information, mainly for simplicity. Such assumptions sometimes lead to an erroneous conclusion, in particular for complex structures and at medium frequencies around the Schroeder cutoff frequency. This paper deals with the effects of nearfield waves and phase information at medium to high frequencies by using the ray tracing method (RTM). A curved beam and a coupled beam system were chosen as test examples, which exhibit the typical mode conversion between various types of travelling waves. Propagation of longitudinal, flexural, and torsional waves was studied based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Analyses of the spatial distribution of vibrational energy quantities revealed that the conventional RTM could mimic the overall trend of the traveling wave solution. However, the results varied smoothly in space due to the neglect of wave interference. By considering the phase information, local fluctuations of vibration energy could be correctly described. It was confirmed that the flexural nearfield plays a significant role near boundaries and junctions. It was also shown that the accuracy of the analysis depends mainly on the modal overlap factor. Similar to other high frequency methods, the results become close to the traveling wave solutions as the modal overlap factor increases.