eOA 2016

rp;m;*fE"Flifh1e

IEEE/OES China Ocean Acoustics Symposium

Harbin. China I January

9 11. 2016

A method to identify the noise radiation regions of

acoustic source
SU Junbo, ZHU Haichao, MAO Rongfu, SU Changwei, GUO Liang

National Key Laboratory on Ship Vibration and Noise

Naval University of Engineering
Wuhan, P. R. China
sujunbo0618@163.com, haiczhu@163.com
Abstract-This paper presents a method to identify the noise
radiation regions of an acoustic source from a small number of
measurement points. First, the acoustic radiation modes that
contribute

to

the

acoustic far-field

are

selected.

Next,

the

velocities on the surface of the acoustic source are reconstructed

based on the selected acoustic radiation modes. Finally, the noise
radiation regions are determined from the surface areas that
have larger amplitude of the reconstructed velocities. Numerical
simulations of a rectangular plate are conducted to validate the
efficiency of the proposed approach, and different analyzing
frequencies are considered. The proposed approach facilitates the
identification of the noise radiation regions of an acoustic source
and can also be applied to reduce the radiation noise in the far
field.

Keywords- noise radiation regions; acoustic radiation modes;

vibration and noise reduction

I.

INTRODUCTION

The identification of regions on a vibrating structure which

radiate noise to the far field is critical in many areas of
acoustics. NAH (near-field acoustic holography) has achieved
great success on the identification and localization of noise
sources in recent years. The locations of noise sources
identified by NAH have the highest vibration, but there is not
an inevitable linear relationship between the vibration and
sound radiation. It is always the case that noise level does not
decrease correspondingly with a reduction of vibration. That is
because the vibrations on the surface of an acoustic source are
composed of supersonic wave components and subsonic wave
components in k-space, and only a part of the wave
components spread to the acoustic far-field. Taking the infmite
plate as an example, only supersonic wave components could
radiate energy to the far-field. Therefore, the regions that have
the highest vibration may not radiate the most energy to the far
field. For reducing the noise in the far-field, it is important to
identify the noise radiation regions of the acoustic source.
The concept of supersonic acoustic intensity was
introduced by Williams to identify the noise radiation regions
[1-2]; Magelhaes and Tenenbaump [3] extended the supersonic
acoustic intensity technique to arbitrarily shaped sources. The
supersonic intensity is obtained by the product of the
supersonic pressure and supersonic velocity. A particular
characteristic of the supersonic acoustic intensity technique is
that a vibrating structure can have positively and negatively
The work presented in this paper is funded by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51305452).

978-1-4673-9978-4/16/$31.00 2016

IEEE

contributing areas, which may lead to cancelation effects on the

total radiated sound power [4]. Steffen Marburg [4] presents a
new method to calculate the contributions of surface areas to
the radiated sound power. Surface contributions can be
calculated with acoustic radiation modes for all boundaries of
the acoustic domain, and the velocities on the whole surface are
required. In this paper, a method is proposed to identify the
noise radiation regions by a small number of measurement
points. This method is also based on acoustic radiation modes.
Those acoustic radiation modes that contribute to the acoustic
far-field are selected to reconstruct the velocities on the
source's surface. The noise radiation regions can be identified
by the reconstructed velocities.
II.

IDENTIFYING METHOD

The surface of a vibrating structure can be discretized into a

number of elements. The sound power can be written
W

Re[vH Zv]

vH Rv

(1)

in which R is the acoustic radiation resistance matrix; Z is the

acoustic radiation impedance matrix; V is the vector of
velocities on the radiating surface. In the past literatures, the
acoustic radiation modes are usually obtained by eigenvalue
decomposition of the acoustic radiation resistance matrix. For
the sake of simplification of analysis and calculation, the
discretization of the radiating surface is limited to uniform
discretization. Therefore the acoustic radiation resistance
matrix is real, symmetric and has full rank, the acoustic
radiation modes are real vectors and the eigenvalues are real
numbers. However, it is difficult to discretize the surface of a
complex shaped structure uniformly. Without loss of
generality, we obtain the complex acoustic radiation modes and
complex eigenvalues by eigenvalue decomposition of the
acoustic radiation impedance matrix. Upon an eigenvalue
decomposition of matrix

(2)
in which tP is a unitary matrix containing an acoustic radiation
mode in each column,

A (A

diag[,,

. . .

,Ai""]) is a

diagonal matrix. Therefore, an arbitrary velocity vector on the

surface can be expanded in terms of acoustic radiation modes

as
v

tPC

(3)

where C represents a vector of modal participation coefficients.

Substituting (2) and (3) into (1) leads directly to a simple and
compact expression of the radiated sound power as

2: Re(A,) ic; 12

(4)

,=1

It should be noted that (4) is the same as the conventional

expression except that only the real part of the eigenvalue is
used in (4). According to the theory of acoustic radiation
modes, the eigenvalue of the acoustic radiation resistance
matrix is proportional to the radiation efficiency of the
corresponding acoustic radiation mode. Therefore, it is obvious
that the real part of the eigenvalue of the acoustic radiation
impedance matrix is proportional to the radiation efficiency of
the corresponding acoustic radiation mode. We rearrange the
acoustic radiation modes in tP in order of the relative higher
real part of the eigenvalue, and denote the new acoustic
radiation modes matrix as E .
The relatively higher radiation efficiency of an acoustic
radiation mode means that there are more supersonic wave
components contained in this acoustic radiation mode. In order
to show the property more clearly, the wave number spectrums
of the acoustic radiation modes of a simple supported square
steel plate are simulated. Assuming that the size of the square
plate is 0.5 x 0.5m, and the analyzing frequency is 380Hz,the
wave number spectrum is shown inFig.I.

radiation efficiency of the acoustic radiation mode decreases

with the increasing order of acoustic radiation mode. In this
paper the number of acoustic radiation modes which radiate
energy to the far-field is determined by the real part of
eigenvalue. The method to determine the cutoff order of the
acoustic radiation modes will be presented in the next section.
Assuming the cutoff order of the acoustic radiation modes
is M , the velocities on the surface could be reconstructed by
the fust M acoustic radiation modes. The distribution of
reconstructed velocities is the vibrating pattern that radiates
energy to the far-field. The amplitude of the reconstructed
velocity represents the contribution of the corresponding
surface area to the acoustic far-field. The reconstructing
process is presented as follows.
The vector of velocities on the surface could be written as

v = Ec
in which

(5)

is the vector of modal participation coefficients.

Assuming the number of discretization elements is N , the

number of acoustic radiation modes included in E is N .

Because (5) has a favorable convergence property, the vector
of velocities could be expressed approximately by the truncated
acoustic radiation mode matrix.
(6)
in which E(NXN1) includes the fust
modes. If

N2 (N2

N, acoustic radiation

:2: N, ) elements of the velocity vector are

known, the equations can be obtained by the

N2 elements.
(7)

The vector of modal participation coefficients

be solved by (8).

C(N1x')

can

(8)
in which
Fig. 1. Wave number spectrums of the first ten acoustic radiation modes.

The wave number spectrums of the first to fifth acoustic

radiation modes are given in the first row of Fig.I; the wave
number spectrums of the sixth to tenth acoustic radiation
modes are given in the second row of Fig.I. The circle in the
wave number spectrum represents the radiation circle. It can be
seen from Fig.I that the wave number components in the
radiation circle decrease with the increase of the order of
acoustic radiation mode. This explains the property that the

978-1-4673-9978-4/16/$31.00 2016

IEEE

'
(E (N2XNdr

is the pseudo inverse of

'
E (N2XNd'

If the cutoff order of acoustic radiation modes is

M (M

<

N1), then the velocity distribution pattern that

radiates energy to the far-field can be reconstructed by the M

acoustic radiation modes

(9)

in which

E"

is the matrix of the fIrst M acoustic radiation

modes, and C is the vector of modal participation coefficients

corresponding to the fIrst M acoustic radiation modes.
III.

frequency. When the (i, j) spans all the k-space components,

the relationship curve between the real part of

number kij can be obtained. Fig.2 shows the relationship curve

when the analyzing frequency is 300Hz.

NUMERICAL SIMULAnONS

A numerical simulation study is conducted to examine the

validity of the method proposed in this paper. In Sec. III. A, a
method to determinate the cutoff order of acoustic radiation
modes is presented; in Sec. III. B, the noise radiation region of
a baffled square plate is analyzed.
A.

Aji and wave

100.-------,-------.----------,

..
""
0....-100 .

Cutoff order of acoustic radiation modes

As described above, the determination of cutoff order of

acoustic radiation modes is a problem existing in the
reconstructing process of velocities. Photiadis pointed out that
the wave number spectrum of the radiation modes has some
resemblance with the "beams" of wave vector filtering [5].
This phenomenon can be observed inFig. I. Arthur P. Berkhoff
[6] estimated the cutoff order based on the number of
propagating beams. However, Arthur P. Berkhoff's method is
only an approximation for the number of required acoustic
radiation modes, and lacks a theoretical basis. In this section,
the method to determine the cutoff order of acoustic radiation
modes is derived.
In [7], Williams gave the arithmetic expression of acoustic
radiation impedance withFourier transform operator.

.::l
'bii
c;

-200
-300
-400

-600
-700

L --L-=::i'::::"""""'''''''
'''
''''
'' ''

-800
o

__

Fig. 2. Relationship curve between Re(Aji) and kij

in which F is the DFT operator, and it has been proved by

Williams that (10) is an eigenvalue decomposition of Z; Gis
a diagonal matrix

=k

kij in radiation circle ( kij

decreases with the increase of

(10)

Re(Aji) increases with the

It is shown from Fig.2 that

mcrease of

), whereas it

kij outside the radiation circle.

Re(Aji) achieves the maximum when kij

= k.

In order to determine the cutoff order of the acoustic

radiation modes, the maximum value and the minimum value
of

Re(Aij) in the radiation circle are selected, and the

threshold is defmed
(11)
in which Aij is the eigenvalue of

I1cy = 201g(

Z.

For a planar acoustic source and cylindrical acoustic

source, Ail can be calculated by (12) and (13) respectively.

Re(k)
Ij max

Re(Aij)min

(14)

From the fIrst of the acoustic radiation modes to the last,

the ratio between the maximum value of

Re(Aij) and the real

part of the eigenvalue corresponding to the acoustic radiation

mode is calculated in turn.
(12)

A)n

In (12),

= 1.pck
k.IJ

Hn (kr)
IJ
'

Hn (kr')
I]

' kIJ.

,.--2
2
-VIk kZ)
_

I1cy
,
(13)

Ij

Re(A,)

space, k is the wave number corresponding to the analyzing

IEEE

(15)

I1CYi increases with the increase of the order of

acoustic radiation mode. When

kxl' kYI are the discretized wave numbers in the k

978-1-4673-9978-4/16/$31.00 2016

The ratio

= 201g( Re(A)max)

I1CY, is greater than the

threshold I1cy , a judgment should be made that the acoustic

radiation mode would not radiate energy to the acoustic far-

field. The cutoff order of acoustic radiation modes can be

determined fmally.
B.

Noise radiation regions ofplate

When the analyzing frequencies are 300Hz, 500Hz, 700Hz,

900Hz, 1100Hz, 1300Hz and 1500Hz, the cutoff order of
acoustic radiation modes which is solved by the method in Sec.
III.A are 4, 8, 13, 18, 22, 25 and 30 respectively. Therefore the
velocities should be reconstructed by these given acoustic
radiation modes. Fig.3 and FigA show the amplitude of
velocity of the plate, surface contribution to radiated sound
power obtained by Steffen Marburg's method, and the
amplitude of reconstructed velocity obtained by the proposed
method.
0.2

0.2

0.1

0.1

-0.2

-0.2
-0.1

0.1

0.2

-02

-0.1

0.1

0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

0. 2
0.1

-0.1
-0.2

0.1

-0.1

-0.1
-0.2

-0.2
-0.2

-0.1

01

0.2

'{P

0.2

-0.1

0.1

"l "

1Il&i , ...
0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

Fig. 3. The amplitude of velocity, surface contribution, and the amplitude of

reconstructed velocity at 300Hz,500Hz,700Hz and 900Hz.

978-1-4673-9978-4/16/$31.00 2016

-01
.
-O.2

-0.2

-0.1

01
.

-0.2

0.2

0.2

0.2

0.1

0. 1

-0.1

-0.1

-0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

max

Fig. 4. The amplitude of velocity, surface contribution, and the amplitude of

reconstructed velocity at 1100Hz,1300Hz and 1500Hz.

-0.2

0.1

_ '!$I

max

-0.1

-0.1

0.2

\ :L
o rtl o ' UI
t
01 10 .
n l I n
1iii.. 0 c
,

Consider a baffled square steel plate. The dimensions of the

plate are O.Sm x O.Sm x O.008m . The baffled plate is
modeled in air with 32 x 32 constant boundary elements, and
the speed of sound of 343m/s is assumed for air. When the
plate is motivated by an exciting force with a frequency of
1378Hz, and an amplitude of ION, the vibration of the plate
agrees with the (3, 3) mode pattern.

0.2

0.2
01
.

IEEE

In Fig.3, the analyzing frequencies from top to bottom are

300Hz, 500Hz, 700Hz and 900Hz respectively. In FigA, the
analyzing frequencies from top to bottom are 1100Hz, 1300Hz,
and 1500Hz respectively. In the first column ofFig.3 andFigA,
the velocity is given in the form of a (3, 3) mode pattern, the
second column shows surface contribution to radiated sound
power, and the third colunm shows the reconstructed velocity.
It can be observed from Fig.3 that the results for the
velocity of the plate and the reconstructed velocity are notably
different, whereas the result for the reconstructed velocity is
consistent with the result for the surface contribution to
radiated sound power. The reconstructed velocity and the
surface contribution to radiated sound power show a
distribution where only the comers of the plate are significantly
contributing to the radiated noise. FigA shows that the regions
of vibration and noise radiation substantially converge with the
increase of analyzing frequency. The result is consistent with
the conventional theory of edge and comer mode radiation as
well.
It should be noted that the noise radiation regions obtained
by Steffen Marburg's method differ from the proposed method
slightly. That is because the reconstructed velocity is an
approximation for the velocity pattern that contributes to the
acoustic far field. Some wave number components that could
not radiate energy to the far-field still are contained in the
reconstructed velocity. The advantage of the proposed method
is that, those acoustic radiation modes which radiate energy to
the far-field can be determined, which is beneficial to the active
control of noise when using acoustic radiation modes.

IV.

REFERENCES

CONCLUSIONS

An efficient identifying method is presented based on a

small number of measurement points of a radiating structure.
The validity of the proposed method is tested by numerical
simulation for a planar acoustic source at different frequencies.
The result shows that the noise radiation regions of the acoustic
source are different from the vibrating regions especially when
the analyzing frequency is much lower than the exciting
frequency. The proposed approach facilitates the identification
of the noise radiation regions of an acoustic source and can also
be applied to reduce the radiation noise in the far-field. In
addition, the method to determine the cutoff order of acoustic
radiation modes of planar and cylindrical acoustic source is
presented in this paper. More studies should be conducted for
the determination of cutoff order of acoustic radiation modes of
arbitrarily shaped acoustic sources, which [is general and] will
have wide applications in engineering problems.

978-1-4673-9978-4/16/$31.00 2016

IEEE

[1]

E. Williams, "Supersonic acoustic intensity," 1. Acoust. Soc. Am, vol.

97,no. 1,pp. 121-127,1995.

[2]

E. Williams, "Supersonic acoustic intensity on planar sources," J.

Acoust. Soc. Am,vol. 104,no. 5,pp. 2845-2850,1998.

[3]

M. B. S. Magelhaes and R. B. Tenenbaum,"Supersonic acoustic

intensity for arbitrarily shaped sources," Acta Acust. Acust,vol. 92,pp.
189-201,2006.

[4]

Steffen Marburg,"Surface contributions to radiated sound power," J.

Acoust. Soc. Am,vol. 133,no. 6,pp. 3700-3705,2013.

[5]

Photiadis D M, "The relationship of singular value decomposition to

wave-vector filtering in sound radiation problems," J. Acoust. Soc. Am,
vol. 88,no. 2,pp. 1152-1159,1990.

[6]

Arthur P. Berkhoff,"Sensor scheme design for active structural acoustic

control," J. Acoust. Soc. Am,vol. 108,no. 3,pp. 1037-1035,2000.

[7]

Earl G. Williams, "Regularization methods for near-field acoustical

holography," J. Acoust. Soc. Am,vol. 110,no. 4,pp. 1976-1988,2001.