Transient acoustic radiation from impulsively accelerated bodies by the finite element method

Bodies under impulsive motion, immersed in an infinite acoustic fluid, severely put to test any numerical method for the transient exterior acoustic problem. Such problems, in the context of the finite element method (FEM), are not well studied. FE modeling of such problems requires truncation of the infinite fluid domain at a certain distance from the structure. The volume of computation depends upon the extent of this domain as well as the mesh density. The modeling of the fluid truncation boundary is crucial to the economy and accuracy of solution and various boundary dampers have been proposed in the literature for this purpose. The second order damper leads to unsymmetric boundary matrices and this necessitates the use of an unsymmetric equation solver for large problems. The present paper demonstrates the use of FEM with zeroth, first and second order boundary dampers in conjunction with an unsymmetric, out of core, banded equation solver for impulsive motion problems of rigid bodies in an acoustic fluid. The results compare well with those obtained from analytical methods.