Time-domain simulation of damped impacted plates. I. Theory and experiments.

A time-domain formulation for the flexural vibrations in damped rectangular isotropic and orthotropic plates is developed, in order to investigate transient excitation of plates by means of sound synthesis. The model includes three basic mechanisms of damping (thermoelasticity, viscoelasticity and radiation) using a general differential operator. The four rigidity factors of the plate are modified by perturbation terms, each term corresponding to one specific damping mechanism. The first damping term is derived from the coupling between the thermoelastic stress-strain relations and the heat diffusion equation. The second term is obtained from the general differential formulation of viscoelasticity. The third term is obtained through a Pade approximation of the damping factor which governs the coupling of the plate with the surrounding air. The decay factors predicted by the model reproduce adequately the dependence on both dimensions and frequency of the decay factors measured on rectangular plates of various sizes and thicknesses made of four different materials (aluminum, glass, carbon fiber, and wood). The numerical resolution of the complete problem, including initial and boundary conditions, and the comparison between real and simulated sounds are presented in a companion paper.