Two-dimensional and three-dimensional acoustic loading on cylinders due to a point source

Abstract

The prediction of sound pressure at the surface of a cylinder is of importance in many applications of acoustics, especially to investigate the acoustic loading on a rocket fairing structure. For simplicity, the majority of the investigations of the external acoustic loading on a rocket fairing structure have been conducted using a cylindrical geometry for which the theoretical analyses are available. However, it was found that these analyses are not able to identify either the source position or strength; there is also no scope in those theories to consider the decay of source strength due to wave propagation, considering the oblique distance relative to a cylinder. Therefore, effort has been spent here to modify the existing theories to make them applicable for finite distance of source position and decay of source strength due to wave propagation. The boundary element method has been used to develop the numerical models for acoustic loading at the surface of a cylinder. The analytical and numerical results were verified with the experimental results, which show very good agreement between the results obtained analytically, numerically, and experimentally.