Simulating and measuring structural intensity fields in plates induced by spatially and temporally random excitation

The structure-borne power in bending waves is well understood, and has been studied by many investigators in ideal beam and plate structures. All studies to date, however, have considered only the structural intensity induced by deterministic, localized drives. Since many structures of practical interest are excited by spatially random pressure fields, such as diffuse and turbulent boundary layer pressure fluctuations, techniques for measuring and predicting the structural intensity patterns in flat plates excited by such fields are presented here. The structural intensity at various frequencies in a simply supported, baffled, flat plate driven by a diffuse pressure field is simulated using analytical techniques and measured by post-processing data from a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer and reference accelerometer using finite differencing techniques. The measured and simulated fields are similar, and show intensity patterns different from those caused by deterministic point drives. Specifically, no clear source regions are apparent in the randomly driven intensity fields, although the energy flow patterns do clearly converge toward a point damper attached to the plate.