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Prediction of the vibroacoustic response of aerospace composite structures in a broadband frequency range

During its mission, a launch vehicle is subject to broadband, severe, aeroacoustic and structure-borne excitations of various provenances, which can endanger the survivability of the payload and the vehicles electronic equipment, and consequently the success of the mission. Aerospace structures are generally characterized by the use of exotic composite materials of various configurations and thicknesses, as well as by their extensively complex geometries and connections between different subsystems. It is therefore of crucial importance for the modern aerospace industry, the development of analytical and numerical tools that can accurately predict the vibroacoustic response of large, composite structures of various geometries and subject to a combination of aeroacoustic excitations. Recently, a lot of research has been conducted on the modelling of wave propagation characteristics within composite structures. In this study, the Wave Finite Element Method (WFEM) is used in order to predict the wave dispersion characteristics within orthotropic composite structures of various geometries, namely flat panels, singly curved panels, doubly curved panels and cylindrical shells. These characteristics are initially used for predicting the modal density and the coupling loss factor of the structures connected to the acoustic medium. Subsequently the broad-band Transmission Loss (TL) of the modelled structures within a Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) wave-context approach is calculated. Mainly due to the extensive geometric complexity of structures, the use of Finite Element(FE) modelling within the aerospace industry is frequently inevitable. The use of such models is limited mainly because of the large computation time demanded even for calculations in the low frequency range. During the last years, a lot of researchers focus on the model reduction of large FE models, in order to make their application feasible. In this study, the Second Order ARnoldi (SOAR) reduction approach is adopted, in order to minimize the computation time for a fully coupled composite structural-acoustic system, while at the same time retaining a satisfactory accuracy of the prediction in a broadband sense. The system is modelled under various aeroacoustic excitations, namely a diffused acoustic field and a Turbulent Boundary Layer (TBL) excitation. Experimental validation of the developed tools is conducted on a set of orthotropic sandwich composite structures. Initially, the wave propagation characteristics of a flat panel are measured and the experimental results are compared to the WFEM predictions. The later are used in order to formulate an Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) approach for the modelling of the spatial response of the panel within a dynamic stiffness matrix approach. The effect of the temperature of the structure as well as of the acoustic medium on the vibroacoustic response of the system is examined and analyzed. Subsequently, a model of the SYLDA structure, also made of an orthotropic sandwich material, is tested mainly in order to investigate the coupling nature between its various subsystems. The developed ESL modelling is used for an efficient calculation of the response of the structure in the lower frequency range, while for higher frequencies a hybrid WFEM/FEM formulation for modelling discontinuous structures is used.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CCSD/oai:tel.archives-ouvertes.fr:tel-00787864
Date29 November 2012
CreatorsChronopoulos, Dimitrios
PublisherEcole Centrale de Lyon
Source SetsCCSD theses-EN-ligne, France
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePhD thesis

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