Douglas A. Rebinsky
Dept. of Mech. and Aerosp. Eng., Rutgers Univ., P.O. Box 909, Piscataway, NJ 08855-0909
A perturbation solution is developed to study diffracted longitudinal membrane waves originating from the junction of two curved plates which are joined so that their tangent is continuous. It is shown that the diffracted longitudinal wave field in the plates is dependent upon or forced by a background solution which characterizes the acoustic interaction between two joined, flat plates and the surrounding fluid. Two forms of background wave fields are used: (1) a simple solution based on the acoustic diffraction from two massive plates, and (2) the solution of acoustic diffraction from two flat plates governed by the classical theory of flexure. Explicit expressions are shown for the longitudinal diffraction coefficients, associated with this fluid/structure interaction. The reciprocal problem of an incoming longitudinal wave to the joint is discussed. Numerical results of the diffraction coefficient will be shown. [Work supported by ONR.]