Prediction of the vibroacoustic behavior of a submerged shell with non-axisymmetric internal substructures by a condensed transfer function method

Abstract

The vibroacoustic behavior of axisymmetric stiffened shells immersed in water has been intensively studied in the past. On the contrary, little attention has been paid to the modeling of these shells coupled to non-axisymmetric internal frames. Indeed, breaking the axisymmetry couples the circumferential orders of the Fourier series and considerably increases the computational costs. In order to tackle this issue, we propose a sub-structuring approach called the Condensed Transfer Function (CTF) method that will allow assembling a model of axisymmetric stiffened shell with models of non-axisymmetric internal frames. The CTF method is developed in the general case of mechanical subsystems coupled along curves. A set of orthonormal functions called condensation functions, which depend on the curvilinear abscissa along the coupling line, is considered. This set is then used as a basis for approximating and decomposing the displacements and the applied forces at the line junctions. Thanks to the definition and calculation of condensed transfer functions for each uncoupled subsystem and by using the superposition principle for passive linear systems, the behavior of the coupled subsystems can be deduced. A plane plate is considered as a test case to study the convergence of the method with respect to the type and the number of condensation functions taken into account. The CTF method is then applied to couple a submerged non-periodically stiffened shell described using the Circumferential Admittance Approach (CAA) with internal substructures described by Finite Element Method (FEM). The influence of non-axisymmetric internal substructures can finally be studied and it is shown that it tends to increase the radiation efficiency of the shell and can modify the vibrational and acoustic energy distribution.