The Design of Structures to Resist Jet Noise Fatigue

The design of structures to resist jet noise fatigue demands a knowledge of a wide range of subjects from pure acoustics at one end to metal physics at the other. At the present time the various aspects of the problem are not sufficiently well known quantitatively for a purely theoretical design study to be made. Nevertheless a knowledge of the behaviour of typical forms of construction in noise environments can be used with a limited amount of theoretical work to indicate the most efficient types of structure. This approach to the problem is adopted in this lecture as it seems to be the most promising one available at the moment. It must be emphasised, however, that although some progress has been made in discovering the behaviour of a structure subjected to noise it is not possible to estimate the life of any component at the drawing board stage. Some prototype strain measurements and proof testing are therefore essential if one is to prove the integrity of the design.