Assessing the Vibro-acoustic Radiation Characteristics of a Compact Consumer Appliance

Customer acceptance and regulatory requirements require manufacturers to develop quieter, more pleasant sounding consumer appliances. In developing and deploying noise mitigation strategies, it is important to understand the transfer functions from a source of noise or vibration to the external environment. This study looks to investigate the low frequency vibro-acoustic transfer function of a curved shell, loaded with a spatially varying forced vibration. To better understand the vibro-acoustics of the compact system of sub-wavelength dimensions, the radiation characteristics of the curved shell under different vibration loading is investigated. By then correlating the average surface velocity of the curved shell with far field acoustic measurements the vibro-acoustic characteristics can be obtained. This is then compared to a three dimensional scan performed with a PU intensity probe (Microflown 3D Scan and paint) to interrogate the developing sound field at different distances.