Transient vibration and sound radiation of a stiffened plate

The transient vibration and sound radiation (TVSR) of a stiffened plate was investigated using the time-domain finite element method and time-domain boundary element method. A four-noded stiffened-plate element was adopted in this method; this allowed the plate to have arbitrary elastic boundary conditions and the stiffeners with any shape to be located at arbitrary positions inside the plate. The in-plane deformation of the plate was taken into account. The transient vibration predicted by the present approach showed a good agreement with earlier published results. The proposed method was subsequently applied to a parametric study that examined the effects of the stiffeners on the TVSR of a window, which is a typical plate structure. The results showed that the stiffeners (or their locations) notably influenced the window's TVSR responses, thereby demonstrating the possibility of using appropriate stiffeners to improve the transient vibration and noise isolation performance of a practical window.