Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Research on sound transmission performance of an infinite solid plate excited by a vibrating piston
Wenkai Dong, Meixia Chen* ,Lei Xiong
School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Wuhan, Hubei, China

sound transmission through an infinitely extended construction,
consisting of an elastic solid plate, a number of layers of porous
material and a second elastic solid plate. Chandra, Raja and Gopal(2014) studied the sound transmission loss of functionally graded plates
based on a simple first-order shear deformation theory. Zhao et al.
(2021) developed a model for predicting the vibro-acoustic response of
stiffened plates excited by different incident sound fields. For complex
sound sources, the relevant research is much less. Shi et al. (2008)
applied plane wave expansion form of spherical wave, studied thesound insulation performance of infinite fluid layer. Motoki et al. (2014)
analyzed the transmission of spherical sound wave through an infinite
elastic plate theoretically. Later, Wang (2018) and Liu et al. (2017,2021)
have done a lot of work in spherical wave excitation of various formsof plates. Their methods for studying the vibro-acoustic response under
spherical wave are angular spectrum method and Fourier transform.
The simulation of transducer sound field is of great practicalsignificance in the fields of underwater acoustics, ultrasonic testing andmedicine. As the basic unit of many resonators and sonar arrays, theradiation characteristics of piston sound source are very worthy ofstudy. The early literatures focused on the radiation of piston on infinite
rigid baffle. McGough (2004) proposed a fast numerical method (FNM)
for calculating the sound field radiated by a circular piston. Vovk et al.
(2008) proposed an effective method to solve the sound radiation
problem of a vibrating circular piston by using spherical harmonics,
this method requires manual division of the space into semi sphericalregions. Rdzanek (2019) provided a detailed analysis of the soundradiation and pressure distribution by a vibrating circular piston
embedded in the outlet of a thick hemispherical cavity. These research
results provide guidance for the sound field calculation of various
circular and spherical radiators, the sound field distribution of theradiator source can be substituted into the subsequent calculation.
The main purpose of this study is to solve the sound transmission
problem of a solid plate excited by a vibrating circular piston. The
entire system consists of an infinite solid plate, a piston without a baffle
and the fluid in the two regions of incidence and transmission. The
spherical harmonic expansion method is used to calculate the soundfield of the piston, and then the angular spectrum method is applied tosolve the problem of sound propagation.

ABSTRACTThe sound transmission and insulation properties of various forms ofplates and stiffened plates under plane wave excitation have been
widely studied for many years. In engineering practice, the soundexcitation is often not plane waves, thus, the sound transmission andsound insulation performance of flat plate or layered-structure excitedby various complex sound sources need to be researched. For theproblem of a vibrating piston exciting a plate, the spherical harmonic
expansion is used to calculate the radiated sound field of the piston,which can be expanded into the superposition of plane waves as theincident sound field by spatial Fourier transformation. Then, thetransmission of each plane wave component after incident on the solid
plate is superimposed to obtain the total transmitted sound fieldaccording the angular spectrum method, the result is also verified byfinite element method. On this basis, the effects of plate thickness, thedistance between piston and plate and the radius of the piston on soundtransmission and sound field before and after incident are analyzed.
The research has guiding significance for the calculation of structuralsound transmission excited by complex sound sources.
KEY WORDS: Complex sound source; Vibrating piston; Sound
transmission; Solid plate; Angular spectrum method

INTRODUCTION
Over the past few decades, researchers have done a lot of research on
the transmission and scattering of structures under acoustic excitation.
Whether in the fields of military, fishery or medical science, a series ofbehaviors that occur when waves the sound source sends out go
through the transmission path are of great concern.
In the field of traditional underwater acoustics, As the simplest form of
acoustic excitation, structures vibrating under plane wave excitation is
first studied. Since the 1950s, scholars have systematically analyzed
homogeneous layer materials, and Brekhovskikh has made acomprehensive introduction to the acoustic wave propagation model inelastic layered media. The follow-up research focuses on the soundpropagation in various complex laminated structures. Lauriks, Meesand Allard (1992) used a matrix formalism, they calculated theTHEORETICAL MODEL3130