Acoustics Field and Active Structural Acoustic Control Modeling in ANSYS
Acoustics Field and Active Structural Acoustic Control Modeling in ANSYS
Acoustics Field and Active Structural Acoustic Control Modeling in ANSYS
Modeling in ANSYS
M. S. Khan, C. Cai and K. C. Hung
Institute of High Performance Computing
89-C Science Park Drive #02-11/12, The Rutherford
Singapore Science Park 1, Singapore 118261
Abstract:
This article attempts to examine acoustic finite element analysis coupled with structure, and provides the
necessary information to apply ANSYS for a wide class of structural acoustics problem. First part of this
article describes the acoustic field and hence the uses of acoustic point sources in ANSYS. Results are
explained and compared with that of analytical solution. And second part deals with the active control of
structural acoustic problems. Results are presented for global cancellation of a primary monopole's sound
field by the use of multiple piezoelectric elements bonded to the surface of the elastic structure to provide
control forces.
Introduction:
As we know, ANSYS can be applied to carry out the acoustic analysis, which includes the generation,
propagation, scattering, diffraction, transmission, radiation, attenuation, and dispersion of sound pressure
waves in a fluid medium [1, 2]. In the ANSYS/Multiphysics and ANSYS/Mechanical programs, an acoustic
analysis usually involves modeling the fluid medium and the surrounding structure. The ANSYS program
supports a harmonic response analysis due to harmonic excitation, as well as modal and transient acoustic
analyses. The normal procedure includes four major steps in a harmonic acoustic analysis: build the model,
apply boundary conditions and loads, obtain the solution and review the results. One of the purposes of this
paper is to address the acoustic field modeling during the model creation and the flow-type load application
when considering the sound scattering and reflection problems.
Active control of structural acoustic has been a great interest to the researchers in the recent years.
Piezoelectric substance such as PZT has the ability to control acoustic field by the introduction of electric
fields or voltage potentials. Few FEA packages are available where piezoelectric material strongly coupled
with fluid medium can be included directly for the purpose of active control. This paper will also show the
ability of ANSYS to examine the global reduction of the radiated sound pressure in a harmonically excited
enclosed fluid medium, where piezoelectric material will be used as the control force.
M 0 u&& C 0 u& K K Z u F + F pr
0 + + T = (1)
0 V&& 0 0 V& K Z K d V L
Where,
M = Structural mass matrix
C = Steructural damping matrix
The fluid pressure load vector at the interface S is obtained by integrating the pressure over the area of the
fluid/structure interface surface.
F pr = ∫∫ {N ′}P{n}dS (2)
Where {N ′} are the shape functions employed to discretize the displacement components u, v, w (obtained
from the structural element), {n} is the unit normal to fluid/structure boundary. Details of finite element
formulation of fluid structure coupling along with the piezoelectric analysis can be found in reference [3].
Acoustic Field:
The theoretical model underlying all mathematical models of the acoustic propagation is the wave equation.
The wave equation is derived from the more fundamental equation of state, continuity and motion.
The assumptions made in acoustics and fluid-structure analyses are that the fluid behaves as an ideal
acoustic medium. This implies that (i) the fluid is isotropic and homogeneous, (ii) thermodynamic
processes are adiabatic, (iii) the fluid is inviscid (no viscous damping), and that (iv) acoustic pressure and
displacement amplitudes are small relative to the fluid’s ambient state.
The acoustic wave equation is given by
1 ∂2 p
∇2 p = (3)
c 2 ∂t 2
where, c is the acoustic wave speed. c2 = κ/ρ. ρ is the fluid density, and κ is the fluid bulk modulus.
This paper will not dig into the finite element formulation of structural acoustics. Details of finite element
formulation of the wave equation can be found in references [2,3].
There is four load types in acoustic analysis of ANSYS: constraints (displacement, pressure); forces (force,
moment, flow loading); surface loads (pressure impedance, fluid-structure interaction flag) and inertia
loads (gravity, spinning, etc.). Generally, it is straightforward work to specify the load on the FEM model
except for the flow loading when applying an acoustic loading at a node in the acoustic medium. How to
interpret the physical concept of the flow-type source is crucial for us to apply it in a correct way.
∂ 2u &&ρ
F = -Aρ = −Q ( 6)
∂t 2
where A is a representative area associated with the flowing source. u is the outward normal displacement
&& is the volume acceleration.
of fluid particle to the surface of a fluid mesh. Q
From equation (6), it is seen that the flowing load is actually a product of the volume acceleration and
medium density. Therefore, we have the volume acceleration expression as for a given cylindrical flow
source with radius of a and length of l:
&& = i 2πalωVe iωt
Q ( 7)
So the particle velocity close to the source will be, if the flow source F is given:
F
v= e iωt (8)
i 2πalωρ
For plane strain problem, we may make t be one, Hence the velocity amplitude term is
F
V= ( 9)
2πaωρ
For pressure amplitude only, equation (4) can be written as
F fc ikr + iωt − iα
p= e e e (10)
2ω r
or
Equation (10) describes the relationship between a flow-type source, specified in ANSYS and the pressure
field generated by the source at far field.
Line source consisted of cylindrical sources:
The sound pressure field generated by a line source (length=2L) consisting of the cylindrical sources for far
field can be describe as [5]
ρQ&&
c ikr iωt −i π4
where p cs (r ) = −2 L e e e is the pressure field radiated from an imaginary cylindrical
4πr
fr
source in free space located at the origin whose volume acceleration is that of the whole line source. jo is
the spherical Bessel function.
The sound field in the half space bounded by a rigid baffle can be described as [5]
ρQ&& ikr ke 2 e
p (r,θ ) ≈ e cos(ke cosθ )e iωt , , << 1 (13)
2πr R R
where e is the distance of sources from the baffle and R is the radius of the boundary.
where
{Pt} = vector of total sound pressure at nodes
[A] = transfer function matrix, whose columns are composed of the sound pressure component
contributed by the unit voltage of different piezo element.
{X} = vector of desired voltage at different piezo element
{Ps} = vector of calculated sound pressure at different node in the area of concern with no active
control.
n = no. of node in the area of interest.
L = no. of piezo electric element used for the cancellation problem.
To achieve desired reduction of sound pressure it is necessary to know the relationship, transfer
function matrix A in equation (15), between the force (or applied voltage) of each piezoelectric element and
the sound field generated by the piezoelectric element. Therefore, we make use of the fully acoustic-
piezoelectric-mechanical coupled function provided by the commercial FEM code: ANSYS. The transfer
function matrix A is developed by calculating the sound pressure field due to the unit amplitude of applied
voltage in the every single piezoelectric element leaving the other elements short-circuited and thus the
column of transfer matrix A can be comprised separately. Implicit form of the above mentioned matrices
are as follows:
To reduce the pressure field, which is produced by the primary source, the objective function to be
minimized for the optimization purpose is chosen as the sum of the squared pressures over the nodes (n),
which represent the response field.
n
o= ∑ (Pt )i (Pt )*i (17)
i =1
n
∂ ∑ (Ei )2
i =1
=0 ( 20)
∂X j
where Xj is the jth component of {X}. Note that
n
{E}T {E}= ∑ (Ei )2
i =1
Finally,
For a given set of L actuators, the forces X which minimize the either equation (17) or (18) can be
calculated by solving the complex least-squares equation (22).
Figure 4 to 7 shows the pressure field generated by two cylindrical sources and its accuracy dependence on
the spacing between two sources. It is noticed that the deviations of the directivity patterns become obvious
with the increase of the source spacing. It is because there exists a requirement when applying the infinite
boundary element, which absorbs the waves that are outgoing. It is concluded that the center of the
boundary circle should be as close to the center of the model as possible.
A simple case of continuous line source considering a distribution of cylindrical sources along the line has
been employed to clarify further the ANSYS result with that of analytical one. The near field acoustic field
(r,θ) of a continuous line source of length L (=1m), distance between the sources is of 0.02m, is found by
summing the contributions of the simple cylindrical sources designated along the line. Figure 8 shows the
pressure amplitude at the circular boundary, centered at the center of the line, of radius 1m. ANSYS result
shows exact value like the analytical result where most of the acoustic energy is projected in the major
lobe, which is in the direction perpendicular to the line source. Figure 9 shows the corresponding pressure
contour for continuous line source.
Frequency of 300 Hz and 500 Hz have been considered to examine the relative error of ANSYS result
compared to analytical result with respect to the distance of flow source from the baffle. Figure 10 shows
the relative % error vs. distance of source from the baffle. Percentage of error increases with the increment
of distance from the baffle, which is desired. However the relative error decrease with the increase of
frequency considered because the radius of circular boundary is larger. For example, Figure 11 and Figure
12 show the pressure at the radial boundary and the pressure contour of the field for distance of source of
1m from the baffle for high frequency like 2000 Hz and 3000 Hz. It can be concluded that ANSYS results
show good agreement with that of analytical result when flow source is placed away from baffle.
Figure 10 - Relative error% vs. distance from the baffle for frequency of 300 and 500 Hz.
Figure 11 - Pressure at boundary for point source at a distance of 1 m from the baffle (f
=2000 Hz)
Figure 12 - Pressure at boundary for point source at a distance of 1 m from the baffle (f
=3000 Hz)
Global reduction with 10 piezo elements has been implemented with complex LMS method as an
optimization tool. An ANSYS macro file, in APDL (ANSYS parametric design language), has been used to
construct the transfer function matrix due to the actuators and measurement due to the noise source only
both for sound level and structural displacement. Complex LMS method has been implemented in this
macro file, which will give the reduction of sound level, structural vibration in db and required force in the
actuators with all piezo elements in action.
A frequency of 120 Hz, which is close to modal frequency of 118.4 Hz (coupled; structure and acoustics),
has been considered to examine the global pressure reduction and structural vibration, along the top of the
elastic layer, and reduction are found to be 17.56 dB and 7.6 dB respectively. Pressure contour, boundary
pressure and structural vibration plotting, before and after control, for frequency of 120 Hz have been
shown in Figures 13 to 16.
Figure 15 - Pressure along the radial boundary for frequency of 120 Hz (before and after
control)
Figure 16 - Displacement along the top of the elastic layer for frequency of 120 Hz (before
and after control)
Conclusion:
Acoustic field and the strength of source used in ANSYS have been described and the result of various
cases associated with the acoustic pressure field creation has been compared with the analytical result. All
results are in good agreement with the analytical outcome. This study provides a clear view of the acoustic
noise field generation in the commercial finite element code, ANSYS. For 2-D acoustic FEM of ANSYS,
the acoustic point source is cylindrical point source. The radius of circular infinite boundary is crucial for
the FEM results. Active control of structurally radiated sound into a fluid medium has also been
implemented in ANSYS where piezo electric material is used as a controlling tool. The cost function that
was minimized is the sum of the squared sound pressures at the nodes in the fluid medium. A simple
control system with multiple piezoelectric actuators is able to reduce the global sound level. It can be
concluded that minimization of sound field radiated by a source for a given excitation frequency can be
achieved using multiple piezo elements in ANSYS. The active control study reported in this paper is
preliminary which is limited to the active reduction of sound in single frequency and 2-D model with small
number of piezo elements. 3-D model and multi-frequency noise reduction with active actuator can be
simulated for the future study.
Reference:
1) G. R. Liu, C. Cai, X. M. Zhang and K. Y. Lam, Effects of Piezocomposite Coating on Sound
Radiation and Scattering by a Submerged Cylindrical Structure, 70th shock and Vibration
Symposium Nov. 15-19, 1999, USA (Albuquerque, NM).
2) ANSYS, Acoustic and Fluid-Structure Interaction, A Revision 5.0 Tutorial, ANSYS, Inc.,
June 1992.
3) ANSYS, "Theory Reference, Release 5.7," ANSYS, Inc., March. 2001.
4) P. M. Morse and K. U. Ingard, Theoretical Acoustics, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1968,
pp-358.
5) Miguel C. Junger and David Feit, “Sound, Structures and their interaction”, Cambridge, Mass,
MIT press, 1972.