Sound radiation of elastically restrained stiffened orthotropic plates.

Abstract

In this paper, a method is proposed for studying the sound radiation behaviors of elastically restrained stiffened orthotropic plates. The plate stiffened by a number of relatively thick beams on the bottom surface of the plate is elastically restrained around the periphery of the plate. In the vibro-acoustic analysis of the plate, the deformation of the stiffened plate is formulated based on the first-order shear deformation theory and the peripheral elastic restraint modeled as a set of distributed springs. The Ritz method is used to construct the equations of motion for the elastically restrained stiffened plate. The response (amplitudes and phases) at any point on the top surface of the plate subjected to harmonic excitation is used in the Rayleigh first integral to calculate the sound pressure generated by the plate. The sound pressure level (SPL) curve of the plate in the audible frequency range (20-20kHz) is constructed for the plate. The proposed method is then used to study the effects of material properties and stiffened pattern on the SPL curve of the elastically restrained stiffened orthotropic plate. The experimental SPL curves of two elastically restrained stiffened orthotropic plates are determined to verify the accuracy of the theoretical results and demonstrate the applications of the proposed method in the audio industry.