Experimental studies on the vibro-acoustic behavior of a stiffened submerged conical-cylindrical shell subjected to force and acoustic excitation

An experimental model was made to investigate the influence of force and acoustic excitation on the vibration and underwater sound radiation of the stiffened conical-cylindrical shell. Meanwhile, a coupled precise transfer matrix method and wave superposition method was also proposed to analyze vibro-acoustic responses of combined shells. To test accuracy of the present method, vibration and acoustic results of combined shells are firstly examined. As expected, results of present method are in excellent agreement with the ones in literature and model test. The experimental results show that free vibrations of the experimental test are consistent with the literature data and the present method's results. Forced vibration and acoustic test results are also well agreed with the numerical results from the coupled precise transfer matrix method/wave superposition method. The comparisons show that the coupled precise transfer matrix method/wave superposition method is reliable and credible to solve the vibro-acoustic response of combined shells. The analysis shows that the acoustic excitation is the key factor for radiated noise in low-frequency range. However, the radiated noise resulted from force excitation is dominant in mid-high frequency band.