Statistical energy analysis: a critical overview

Abstract

For the benefit of the ‘enquirer within’, who may not be familiar with the background and concepts of SEA, this overview opens with a discussion of the rationale for the use of probabilistic energetic models for high-frequency vibration prediction, and introduces the postulate upon which conventional SEA is based. It compares and relates the modal and travelling wave approaches, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of SEA as currently practised and points out needs and directions for future research. Critical discussions of individual contributions to the development of the subject are presented only in as much as they treat specific matters of concept, principle or reliability. The roles of SEA in providing a framework for experimental investigations of the high-frequency dynamic behaviour of systems and in interpreting observations on operating systems, although equally important, are not substantially addressed. Nor are specific experimental techniques which involve considerations of transducers, spatial sampling, signal processing, error analysis and data interpretation, which require a critical review in their own right.