Considerations on the Modelling of a Benchmark Structure and Applicability of Statistical Energy Analysis

The present work is concerned with modeling high frequency vibration in a simple structure through Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA). The structure is the benchmark used in the Italian National Project "Novel methods for the analysis and control of vibro-acoustic systems". The objective of this work is twofold: to test the sensitivity of the model response to different modeling criteria for a benchmark structure; to assess the importance of the subsystem damping related to the diffusivity of the vibroacoustic field in order to verify the relation between the kind of the vibrational field and the modal overlap factor. The study is performed with numerical tools and an extensive experimental activity, which includes also measurements on other structures similar to the benchmark. The results demonstrate that the modal overlap factor is not adequate to characterize completely the nature of the vibrational field and that damping doesn't indefinitely improves the applicability of SEA.