Effects of symmetrical foundation on sound radiation from a submarine hull structure.

The effects of a passive noise control method for suppressing sound radiation from a submarine hull structure are investigated. The control method is realized by symmetrizing the foundation about the horizontal plane. The coupled finite element method and boundary element method are adopted to compute the acoustic characteristics of the submerged hull. From the numerical results, the symmetrical foundation has advantages in sound radiation reduction when the hull is subjected to the axial load, but has little influences in the vertical and transverse load cases. Using the modal decomposition technique, the contributions of each individual mode to the sound radiation are analyzed to reveal the mechanism of the control method.

Modeling of the through-the-thickness electric potentials of a piezoelectric bimorph using the spectral element method.

An efficient spectral element (SE) with electric potential degrees of freedom (DOF) is proposed to investigate the static electromechanical responses of a piezoelectric bimorph for its actuator and sensor functions. A sublayer model based on the piecewise linear approximation for the electric potential is used to describe the nonlinear distribution of electric potential through the thickness of the piezoelectric layers. An equivalent single layer (ESL) model based on first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is used to describe the displacement field. The Legendre orthogonal polynomials of order 5 are used in the element interpolation functions. The validity and the capability of the present SE model for investigation of global and local responses of the piezoelectric bimorph are confirmed by comparing the present solutions with those obtained from coupled 3-D finite element (FE) analysis. It is shown that, without introducing any higher-order electric potential assumptions, the current method can accurately describe the distribution of the electric potential across the thickness even for a rather thick bimorph. It is revealed that the effect of electric potential is significant when the bimorph is used as sensor while the effect is insignificant when the bimorph is used as actuator, and therefore, the present study may provide a better understanding of the nonlinear induced electric potential for bimorph sensor and actuator.