On the use of a hybrid wave based-statistical energy approach for the analysis of vibro-acoustic systems in the mid-frequency range

Most of the currently available numerical prediction techniques for the analysis of steady-state dynamic vibro-acoustic problems can be classified as being either deterministic or statistical approaches. The Finite Element Method (FEM), the most popular deterministic technique, is limited to the low-frequency range due to its sensitivity to interpolation and pollution errors. The statistical methods, of which the Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) is most know, are limited to the high-frequency range due to their underlying assumptions. Between the low- and high-frequency ranges there is a relatively wide mid-frequency-range, in which some of the structural subsystems fulfill the requirements for the statistical approach and some others do not (yet). Recently, a hybrid deterministic-statistical framework which combines FE and SEA models has been developed by Shorter and Langley. However, the computational load associated with the FE models still limits the use of this method. In this paper, a hybrid framework is proposed which couples Trefftz-based deterministic models with statistical SEA models. The framework is used to couple SEA models with the recently developed Wave Based Method (WBM) of which the computational efficiency can be exploited to reduce the computational load as compared to the hybrid FE-SEA.status: publishe