Aspects of computational vibration transmission for sandwich panels

This paper considers elastic wave propagation and vibration transmission in lightweight composite structures. Specifically a spectral finite element method (SFEM) is developed as an effective numerical tool for the analysis of wave motion in uniform laminated elastic media. In short, SFEM combines a standard finite element method in the direction of layering together with analytical solutions for the remaining direction. This partial discretization leads naturally, via the variational formulation, to dispersion relations for uniform sections of built-up laminates and thus provides valuable information for a wave propagation analysis. Dynamic responses of the vibrating structures are also investigated and numerical simulations compared against a standard finite element method. The predicted transfer accelerances obtained for the steel beam and two sandwich panels are compared with measured data from laboratory experiments.