Vibroacoustic Testing of Panels Under a Turbulent Boundary Layer Excitation Using a Space-Time Spectral Synthesis Approach

The experimental study of a structure’s response to a turbulent boundary layer (TBL) excitation using wind-tunnel or in-vehicle testing generally requires considerable efforts, including the measurement of both turbulent wall-pressure fluctuations and the structure’s vibration response. As an alternative method to highly demanding testing procedures and numerical simulations, this paper proposes a computationally efficient method to predict vibroacoustic responses of a panel under a TBL excitation. Space-time realizations of a TBL wall pressure field obtained using a spectral synthesis approach are coupled to a deterministic model so as to predict mean quadratic velocity, and radiated sound pressure and power from a panel under a TBL excitation. Each realization of the wall pressure field and obtained vibroacoustic results can be considered as a virtual experiment. The radiated sound pressure as a function of time can be also obtained, and possibly later used for listening and psychoacoustics studies objectives. A summary of existing experimental and numerical methods for obtaining the vibroacoustic response of panels to a TBL excitation is first presented. The proposed method is then detailed. Results obtained using this method are finally compared to results obtained using controlled laboratory experiments and analytical calculations for a low subsonic flow speed.