Sound radiation from rectangular plates with elastic boundary restraints

Abstract

Sound radiation from rectangular plates is of considerable interest to both researchers and engineers. Different methods and techniques have been developed for determining the sound radiated from plates with various complicating effects. However, the previous investigations are mostly focused on the simply supported plates, although it is widely known that the radiation efficiency of a plate will be strongly dependent upon its boundary condition. In this study, a general analytical method is presented for the calculation of the sound power radiation from a rectangular plate that is elastically restrained along its edges. The vibration of the elastically restrained plates is expressed in terms of a generalized Fourier series expansion. Thus, many of the existing solutions for the sound radiation from the simply supported plates can be directly applied to the plates with general elastic boundary restraints. The radiation characteristics are compared to the plates under different boundary conditions.