Capabilities and limitations of boundary- and finite-element methods for solving noise and vibration problems

Abstract

Over the last decades the boundary- and finite-element methods (BFEM) have been used in the solution of practical mechanical engineering problems. It is, therefore, appropriate at this time to examine the capabilities and the limitations of these numerical methods to predict, analyze, and solve real-life vibroacoustic problems encountered in several industries such as aerospace, automotive, naval, and railroad. Due to the rapid growth of computer power, several computer-aided engineering tools, based on these BFEM techniques, have been developed and are now commercially available. The purpose of this paper is to review the current state of development of BFEM techniques, and to examine their ability to predict and solve noise and vibration problems. The finite-element method (FEM), will be first analyzed for interior fluid–structure interaction problems, with an extension for exterior radiation problems using the infinite-element method (IEM). Then, the boundary-element method (BEM), will be analyzed for external interaction problems, where the fluid domain is infinite. It will be shown that the combination of these two methods (BFEM) provides a very powerful tool for solving a wide class of vibroacoustic problems, taking advantage of advanced numerical algorithms implemented on modern high-performance computing platforms.