Sound Radiation from an Arbitrary Body

A method of analysis is presented for predicting sound radiation from an arbitrary body (shell) vibrating in an infinite fluid medium. The acoustic field is described by a distribution of surface sources of unknown strength at the shell fluid boundaries, which leads to a set of integral equations. In the general case, the shell with or without an attached internal structure is described by an elastic system having a finite number of degrees of freedom. The dynamic interaction between the shell and the fluid at their boundaries is then formulated in terms of the unknown strength of the source distribution. By matrix analysis, the method has been formalized and coded in the digital computer for computation. Numerical results of two examples are presented to demonstrate the versatility of the method, which makes possible the solution of a large class of sound radiation problems.