Acoustic design sensitivity analysis based on wave superposition approach

Research on the acoustic design sensitivity is significant for its ability to provide the optimized orientation for low noise design of radiating structures. In this paper, the wave superposition approach (WSA) is employed to calculate acoustic design sensitivity. The sensitivity formulations based on the wave superposition are presented in a direct differentiation way, by which the sensitivity of acoustic quantities with respect to the design variables such as structural parameters or physical properties can be obtained. This method is suitable for both shape and sizing sensitivity analysis of arbitrary shaped sources. Compared with the conventional direct differentiation boundary element method, the proposed method has improved accuracy and speed of computation, and has no inherent problem of singular integration which will make numerical processing more complicated. Numerical experiments are demonstrated to show the validity and feasibility of the proposed method.