Simulation of acoustic and vibroacoustic problems in LS-DYNA using boundary element method

The present work concerns the new capability of LS-DYNA® in solving acoustic and vibroacoustic problems. In vibroacoustic problems, which are assumed to be weak acoustic-structure interactions, the transient structural response is computed first. By applying the FFT, it is transformed into a frequency response. The obtained result is taken as boundary condition for the acoustic part of the vibroacoustic problem. Consequently, the radiated noise at any point into space can be calculated. The new developed LS-DYNA keyword is based on boundary element method (BEM) in which only the surface of the acoustic domain needs to be discretized. Besides BEM that solves the Helmholtz equation as a linear system, the new card allows, also, to use two other approximative Rayleigh and Kirchhoff methods. Both methods do not require a system of equations to be assembled and solved. Consequently, they are faster than BEM. Rayleigh method assumes that the radiating structure is a plane surface clamped into an infinite rigid plane. In Kirchhoff method, BEM is coupled to FEM used for acoustics in LS-DYNA by prescribing non reflecting boundary condition. In this case, at least one fluid layer needs to be merged to the vibrating structure.