Application of the Wave Based Method for the calculation of structural intensity and power flow in plates

The Wave Based Method (WBM) is a deterministic prediction method. Due to its enhanced computational efficiency as compared to other deterministic prediction techniques for steady-state dynamic analysis such as the Finite Element Method (FEM), the WBM is applicable for problem analysis in the low- and mid-frequency range. It has been shown already that the WBM is superior to the FEM for the prediction of dynamic displacement fields. This paper discusses application of the WBM for the computation of structural intensity and power flow in Kirchhoff plates. Such calculations require higher-order derivatives of the displacement fields which even further narrows the low-frequency application range of conventional element based methods such as the FEM because of the low-order polynomial field approximations. The WBM adopts wave-like functions instead of low-order polynomials and, as such, is expected to yield faster and more accurate intensity predictions.