Abstract
In the built-up structure consisting of a stiff beam and a flexible plate, Grice showed that the plate behaves as an energy absorber in narrow frequency bands(called plate blocking effect). This paper deals with such beam-plate coupled structures, where the plate is an energy absorber and the excited beam is an energy path. It is found that such energy dissipation can occur in the relatively broad bands, if different stiffnesses are used in the rectangular plate. It was experimentally verified by Heckl that the energies in terms of one-third octave band averages transferred to the plate(or dissipated in the plate) increase for increased plate damping. This Paper, however, shows that the energy absorption suddenly reduces at the certain narrow frequency bands where the plate damping effect upon the coupled beam is maximum. Also, in order to minimize energy transfer through the beam in terms of one-third octave band averages, it is advantageous to increase the plate damping closer to the excitation point All these results are based on the wane method.