Antoine Lavie
Bertrand Dubus
Dept. d'Acoust. I.E.M.N., U.M.R. C.N.R.S. 9929, Inst. Superieur d'Electron. du Nord, 41 boulevard Vauban, 59046 Lille Cedex, France
Considerable interest has been expressed recently in the scattering of a plane acoustic wave by an elastic structure. In this paper, a method that couples the finite element method and a boundary element method is proposed. A finite element code (ATILA) is used to model the elastic structure and a boundary element code (EQI) to describe the propagating waves in the infinite fluid medium surrounding the body. The analysis is performed in three steps for each frequency: (i) the effect of the fluid is characterized by a nodal impedance matrix using BEM, (ii) the analysis of the structure using FEM including fluid effects via the impedance matrix provides the displacement field, (iii) from these displacements, the near-field and far-field pressures are obtained using BEM. The method is successfully applied to the scattering by spherical shells of various thicknesses for ka varying from 0 to 15 (k is the acoustic wave number in the fluid and a is the external radius of the sphere). The advantages of the method (analysis of complex geometries with various materials, direct knowledge of the displacement field, exact description of Sommerfeld's radiation condition) and its drawbacks (irregular frequencies associated with BEM, limitation to medium values of ka) are discussed. [Work supported by D.R.E.T. Paris.]