Prediction of random vibration using spectral methods

Abstract: Much of the vibration in fast moving vehicles is caused bydistributed random excitation, such as turbulent flow and roadroughness. Piping systems transporting fast flowing fluid isanother example, where distributed random excitation will causeunwanted vibration. In order to reduce these vibrations andalso the noise they cause, it is important to have accurate andcomputationally efficient prediction methods available.The aim of this thesis is to present such a method. Thefirst step towards this end was to extend an existing spectralfinite element method (SFEM) to handle excitation of planetravelling pressure waves. Once the elementary response tothese waves is known, the response to arbitrary homogeneousrandom excitation can be found.One example of random excitation is turbulent boundary layer(TBL) excitation. From measurements a new modified Chase modelwas developed that allowed for a satisfactory prediction ofboth the measured wall pressure field and the vibrationresponse of a turbulence excited plate. In order to model morecomplicated structures, a new spectral super element method(SSEM) was formulated. It is based on a waveguide formulation,handles all kinds of boundaries and its elements are easily putinto an assembly with conventional finite elements.Finally, the work to model fluid-structure interaction withanother wave based method is presented. Similar to the previousmethods it seems to be computationally more efficient thanconventional finite elements.