The Effect of Hydrostatic Loading on the Vibration Response of a Plate: Investigative Study

This paper presents a preliminary investigation into the interaction between the sound field produced within a fluid field and a vibrating plate. Previous investigations into the interaction of fluid fields with vibrating boundaries have mainly been restricted to the effects of the added mass, not hydrostatic loading. Fluid-structural coupling methods have been used to capture the underlying mechanisms of this physical problem. A solution is derived for the case of a thin clamped circular plate with a back cavity enclosure containing a water body of various volumes. The resonant frequencies and response functions are calculated and the coupling between the fluid field and the plate is investigated as a function of both the hydrostatic pressure and added mass. The vibration response of the coupled system is described in terms of the uncoupled fluid and structural modes.