Investigation on sound transmission through thick-wall cylindrical shells using 3D- theory of elasticity in the presence of external and mean air-gap flow

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of an external mean flow and an internal air-gap mean flow on sound transmission through a double-wall thick cylindrical shell. Due to the major influence of some effective terms such as membrane, bending, transverse shearing and rotational inertia on thick-walled shell, three-dimensional theory of elasticity is used to obtain the governing equations of motion. Therefore, Newton’s second law is utilized to develop the equilibrium equations for an infinitesimal element in cylindrical coordinates. Then, the equations of motion related to the circular hollow cylinders are solved using Helmholtz potentials for arbitrary values of physical and geometrical parameters. In addition, by coupling of both inner and outer shells, a modal transfer matrix is created. This modal matrix stands for the global dynamic equilibrium of the double-wall cylinder. Moreover, the sound transmission Loss of the double-wall cylinder excited by an acoustic oblique plane wave with two angles of incident (i.e. elevation and azimuth angles) is predicted. Due to lack of studies in the field of sound transmission through the thick-walled shell, the results obtained in this study are compared with those from other researchers for a thin cylindrical shell. These results indicate an excellent agreement in comparison with each other. Furthermore, the results reveal that with thickening of the shell, critical and coincidence frequencies are getting closer to ring frequency. Moreover, the effects of external and air-gap flows on TL behave in similar way whereas the Mach number is positive. In addition, an improvement of transmission loss can be found whereas the Mach number is negative; particularly this enhancement is more specified for the external flow. Finally, the results indicate that where both external and air-gap fluids simultaneously flow in opposite directions [Formula: see text] the TL is significantly enhanced. However, for the case where these two fluids flow in the same direction [Formula: see text] the TL is decreased.