Vibroacoustics Analysis of Plates with Bioinspired Surface Modifications

Abstract

This study presents a simplified semi-analytical model to analyze the dynamic behavior of a plate with shark skin biomimetic surface modifications. The base plate is considered to be thin isotropic homogeneous and modeled using a Kirchhoff–Love plate theory, whereas the dermal denticles are modeled as a distributed array of point mass and replicated using a Dirac delta function. A semi-analytical formulation, which takes into account closed-form beam mode shapes, with the Galerkin technique to minimize errors is utilized to study the free and forced vibration response of modified plates. Harmonic analysis is carried out to understand the dynamic behavior of the modified plate both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. A parametric study varying the array spacing and the boundary conditions is carried out to understand the effect of surface modification on power radiation characteristics. It appears that adding dermal denticles reduces the peak velocity amplitude and peak radiated power at all resonance frequencies. A separate study by varying the base plate material reveals that a higher reduction in the dynamic response and the radiated power can be achieved by increasing the mass ratio. Hence, surface modification using such a shark skin layer may prove beneficial to reduce acoustic radiation and dynamic response and to optimize the design.