Estimating sound power radiated from rectangular baffled panels using a radiation factor

A method is introduced which is shown to predict radiated sound power from rectangular baffled panels. The method employs a filtered wavenumber transform to extract the power in the supersonic wavenumbers on the panel and a radiation factor to scale the supersonic power to match the actual radiated sound power. Although empirically derived, the radiation factor is shown to be related to the radiation efficiency of an infinite panel. The radiation factor is simple, depending only on the ratio of the wavenumbers of the panel to the radiation medium, and the method is straightforward to use, requiring only the panel normal velocities. The computation is efficient, as much as two orders of magnitude faster than a Rayleigh integration, thus providing a means of combining sound power predictions with finite element optimizations. A formula is derived which predicts the lowest frequency for which the method is valid as a function of the bin width of the wavenumber transform. The radiation factor method is shown to produce radiated sound power estimates which favorably compare to estimates derived from intensity measurements of physical test specimens and to Rayleigh integral estimates computed using both simulated and measured velocities.