Semi-analytical formulation to predict the vibroacoustic response of a fluid-loaded plate with ABH stiffeners

Stiffened structures are widely used in aeronautics, marine and rail industries. When stiffeners are integrated into host structures, so-called Bloch-Floquet waves are generated due to interactions between the host’s flexural waves and the stiffeners’ flexural and torsional waves. It is reported in the literature that these waves are often the source of undesirable noise and vibrations when the stiffened structure is excited by a force. To mitigate unwanted noise and vibrations from the stiffened structures, this study proposes to replace common rectangular stiffeners with acoustic black hole (ABH) stiffeners. To do this, a semi-analytical model is initially developed in the wavenumber domain to predict the forced vibroacoustic response of a 2D fluid-loaded infinite plate with stiffeners on one side. In the proposed model, the stiffeners are characterised by their translational and rotational dynamic stiffnesses which can be estimated by a finite element method (FEM). These dynamic stiffnesses are then coupled with the analytical formulation of the fluid-loaded plate to obtain the expressions of the spectral displacement and radiated pressure. Comparisons of the results in terms of the plate’s mean quadratic velocity and radiated sound power for the rectangular and ABH stiffeners show that by using the ABH stiffeners instead of the conventional stiffeners, one can significantly reduce the vibroacoustic response of light/heavy fluid-loaded plates. • A semi-analytical vibroacoustic model of fluid-loaded stiffened plates is developed. • It is computationally efficient and can be used for plates with complex stiffeners. • Vibroacoustic behaviour of heavy fluid-loaded plates with ABH stiffeners is studied. • It is shown ABH stiffeners can significantly mitigate the vibroacoustic response.