Structures acting as waveguides are quite common withexamples being, construction beams, fluid filled pipes, railsand extruded aluminium profiles. Curved structures like cartyres and pipe-bends may also be considered as waveguides. Wavesolutions in such structures may be found by a method calledthe Waveguide Finite Element Method or WFEM. This method uses afinite element approach on the cross-section of a waveguide tomodel the vibro-acoustic response as a set of linear, coupled,one dimensional, wave-equations. In this thesis six novel waveguide finite elements arederived and validated. These elements are, straight and curvedpre-stressed, orthotropic or anisotropic shell elements,straight and curved fluid elements, and straight and curvedfluid-shell coupling elements. Forced response and input power calculations for infiniteand periodic waveguides are presented. The assembled waveguidemodels can also serve as input for the Super Spectral FiniteElement Method, which enables forced response calculations formore complex boundaries. Furthermore, several properties ofdamped and undamped wave solutions are investigated. Finally, a car tyre model, encompassing for the highlyanisotropic material and the air cavity inside the tyre is setforth. A number of forced response calculations for this modelare presented and compared with measurements with goodagreement. Keywords:wave equation, wave solution, waveguide,finite element, spectral finite element, tyre noise, tyrevibration, input power, shells, pre-stress, fluid-shellcoupling axi-symmetric, two-and-half-dimensional

<p>Structures acting as waveguides are quite common withexamples being, construction beams, fluid filled pipes, railsand extruded aluminium profiles. Curved structures like cartyres and pipe-bends may also be considered as waveguides. Wavesolutions in such structures may be found by a method calledthe Waveguide Finite Element Method or WFEM. This method uses afinite element approach on the cross-section of a waveguide tomodel the vibro-acoustic response as a set of linear, coupled,one dimensional, wave-equations.</p><p>In this thesis six novel waveguide finite elements arederived and validated. These elements are, straight and curvedpre-stressed, orthotropic or anisotropic shell elements,straight and curved fluid elements, and straight and curvedfluid-shell coupling elements.</p><p>Forced response and input power calculations for infiniteand periodic waveguides are presented. The assembled waveguidemodels can also serve as input for the Super Spectral FiniteElement Method, which enables forced response calculations formore complex boundaries. Furthermore, several properties ofdamped and undamped wave solutions are investigated.</p><p>Finally, a car tyre model, encompassing for the highlyanisotropic material and the air cavity inside the tyre is setforth. A number of forced response calculations for this modelare presented and compared with measurements with goodagreement.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>wave equation, wave solution, waveguide,finite element, spectral finite element, tyre noise, tyrevibration, input power, shells, pre-stress, fluid-shellcoupling axi-symmetric, two-and-half-dimensional</p>