Vibro-acoustic behavior of an isotropic plate with arbitrarily varying thickness

This paper presents numerical simulation studies on the vibro-acoustic characteristics of an isotropic square plate with six different types of unidirectionally, arbitrarily varying thickness. Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to predict the free and forced vibration characteristics while Boundary Element Method (BEM) is used to predict the sound radiation characteristics. It is found that influence of taper ratio on mode shapes are significant. The resonant amplitude is influenced by changes in mode shapes along with excitation location. The influence of taper ratio and excitation location is significant on overall sound power level except for increasing-decreasing thickness variation. It is found that resonant amplitude and overall sound power level behavior is same for both linear and parabolic variation. (C) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.