Abstract
There has been much effort to find suitable methods for structural analysis in the mid-frequency region where traditional low frequency methods have increasing uncertainties whilst statistical energy analysis is not strictly applicable. Systems consisting of relatively stiff beams coupled to flexible plates have a particularly broad mid-frequency region where the beams support only a few modes whilst the plate has a high modal density and modal overlap. A system of two parallel beams coupled to a plate is investigated based on the wave method, which is an approximate method. Muller's method is utilised for obtaining complex roots of a dispersion wave equation, which does not converge in the conventional wave method based on a simple iteration. The wave model is extended from a single-beam-plate system, to a plate with two identical beams which is modelled using a symmetric-antisymmetric technique. The important hypothesis that the coupled beam wavenumber is sufficiently smaller than the plate free wavenumber is experimentally verified. Finally, experimental results such as powers and energy ratios show the validity of the analytical wave models.