Influence of circumferential partial coating on the acoustic radiation from a fluid-loaded shell

Acoustic compliant coatings are a common approach to mitigate the radiation and scattering of sound from fluid-loaded submerged structures. An acoustic compliant coating is a coating that decouples an acoustic source from the surrounding acoustic medium; that is, it provides an acoustic impedance mismatch (different density and speed of sound product). Such a coating is distinct from an ordinary compliant coating in that it may not be resilient in the sense of low stiffness, but still provides an acoustic impedance mismatch. Ideally, the acoustic coating is applied uniformly over the entire surface of the fluid-loaded structure to minimize the acoustic radiation and scattering. However, in certain instances, because of appendages, it may not be practically possible to completely cover the surface of a fluid-loaded structure to decouple it from the adjacent acoustic medium. Furthermore, there may be some inherent advantages to optimizing the distribution of the coating around areas from which the acoustic radiation appears to be dominant. This would be analogous to the application of damping treatment to a vibrating structure in areas where the vibration levels are highest. In the case of the acoustic radiation the problem is more complex because of the coupling between the acoustic fluid and the structure. In this paper, the influence of a partial coating on the acoustic radiation from a fluid-loaded, cylindrical shell of infinite extent and excited by either a line force or an incident plane acoustic wave is examined. The solution to the response and scattered pressure is developed following the procedure used by the authors in previous work on the scattering from fluid-loaded plates and shells. The coating is assumed to be normally reacting providing a decoupling layer between the acoustic medium and the structure; that is, it does not add mass or stiffness to the base structure. The influence of added mass or stiffness of the coating can be included as an added inhomogeneity and treated separately in the solution.