Modal Analyses

Acoustics ACTx R150

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Modal Analyses
Modal analyses are used to model the acoustic modes of an acoustic cavity
(standing waves) or to compute the mode shapes of vibro-acoustic
systems.
Man can then tell which acoustic modes are causing problem or identify
vibration cause.

Ability to include impedance and interaction with structure

Block Lanczos, Damped and unsymmetric eigensolvers available

Image on the right

shows standing
wave patterns in
an acoustic cavity

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Modal Analyses
For pure acoustics modal analysis the acoustic modes are
computed using the following equation:

M j C K p 0
2

For fluid structure interaction problems the acoustic and

the structural coupled modes are computed using the
following equation:

Ms
2

T

R
0

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0
Cs
j

Mf
0

0 K s

Cf 0

R u
0

K f p

Applying Impedance
Boundary

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Impedance Boundary
Acoustic impedance indicates how much sound pressure is
generated by the vibration of molecules of a particular
acoustic medium at a given frequency.

The specific acoustic impedance z of an acoustic component

(in Pas/m) is the ratio of sound pressure p to particle
velocity v at its connection point:

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p
v

Impedance Boundary
In general, a phase relation exists between the pressure and the
particle velocity. So the impedance becomes complex:

Z R iX
Where:

R is the resistance in Pa.s/m

X is the reactance in Pa.s/m

The resistive part represents the various loss mechanisms an acoustic

wave experiences. For resistive effects, energy is removed from the
wave and converted into other forms. This energy is said to be 'lost
from the system'.

The reactive part represents the ability of air to store the kinetic energy
of the wave as potential energy since air is a compressible medium.
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Impedance & Admittance

Acoustic admittance Y can also be defined. The admittance
corresponds to the inverse of the impedance:

1
1
G iB
Z
R iX

Where:

G is the conductance in m/(Pa.s)

B is the susceptance in m/(Pa.s)

The conductance and the susceptance can converted from the

impedance using the following relations:

R
R2 X 2
X
B 2
R X2

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Impedance Boundary
Impedance or admittance boundary can be applied using the
Impedance Boundary object on free surfaces or on FSI
interface (Viscoelastic material with a thin layer of a porous
fabric separating both media to reduce the sound).

Boundary condition on FSI interface

vn, f (r ) vn,s (r ) Y (r ) p(r )

FEM formulation

M j C C K p 0
2

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fsi

Impedance Boundary
The Impedance Boundary object allows you to define the resistance
and the reactance parts of the impedance (MAPDL command: (SF,,IMPD,
Resistance, Reactance)):

In modal analyses you have to use the admittance form so input the
conductance and the product of the capacitive susceptance and the
angular velocity (MAPDL command: (SF,,IMPD, - Conductance,
Susceptance*)):
G
*B=2f*B
Note: The impedance boundary condition would create a damping matrix, so we
would need to use the damped eigensolver to correctly include this damping
matrix.
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Impedance Boundary
It is also possible to define frequency varying impedance by
setting Frequency Dependency property to Yes.
Add a row

Use RMB to
delete rows

Note: MAPDL command: SF,,IMPD, %value1%, %value2%

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Attenuation Surface
The attenuation coefficient is the ratio of the absorbed sound power
density to the incident sound power density. The ratio is expressed as
follows:
Ia

I Inc
The impedance (Im(Z)=0) is defined by Z Z 0
where:

1 R
1 R

R 1

= attenuation coefficient
I a = absorbed sound power density
I Inc = incident sound power density
P
is the sound impedance of the acoustic media
Z 0 0c
Vn
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Attenuation Surface
The attenuation coefficient can be defined using the Attenuation Surface
object available in the Boundary Conditions menu:

Note: MAPDL command: SF,,ATTN, alpha

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Attenuation Surface
It is also possible to define frequency varying attenuation
surface by setting Frequency Dependency property to
Yes.

Add a row

Use RMB to
delete rows

Note: MAPDL command: SF,,ATTN, %value1%

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Plane Wave Absorption

In harmonic (discussed later) well see that having an impedance
equal to 0*c corresponds to a non reflective boundary condition
for a planar wave condition (anechoic termination) but it is not
completely exact for modal analysis.
Please note that if you're doing a modal analysis, there isn't
really a "mode" associated with an anechoic termination. The
analogy in structural analyses is having a 'semi-infinite beam' there isn't a "mode" for an infinite or semi-infinite beam.

Consequently, you may see your frequencies change a bit,

depending on how "long" you make the inlet/outlet length since
this anechoic termination makes sense in harmonic response or
transient analyses but not so much in modal analyses.

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Fluid Structure
Interaction

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Structural Loads & BC

Structural loads and boundary conditions can be applied as
usual using standard objects:

Note that the Fixed Support set all degrees of freedom to

zero. So if a Fixed Support is applied on nodes connected
to acoustic elements the pressure dof will also be set to 0.
Thus its recommended to use Displacement support
instead.

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Acoustic Structure Coupling

For fluid structure interaction problem two different
coupling algorithm are available and can be chosen at the
Acoustics Body object level:

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Unsymmetric formulation

Recently implemented Symmetric formulation

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Unsymmetric formulation
Putting structure and fluid fields together we end up with the
unsymmetric coupled (u, p) formulated FSI matrix system:

M
2 sT

0 R

0
Cs
j

Mf
0

0 K s

Cf 0

R u
0

K f p

This unsymmetric formulation requires a large amount of memory

because we need to store the full matrix and not only the upper triangular
half.
Using an unsymmetric algorithm also requires to use the unsymmetric or
damped eigensolvers:

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Unsymmetric formulation
Using unsymmetric algorithm its possible to use both unsymmetric and
uncoupled formulations. The best solution here in terms of number of
DOF to compute is to create a single of layer of elements using
unsymmetric algorithm at the FSI boundary and use uncoupled algorithm
for all other elements.
Acoustic body with
a single element
layer using
Unsymmetric
algorithm

Acoustic body
using Uncoupled
algorithm
Structural body
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Symmetric formulation
In V13 we introduced a more efficient symmetry formulation.
With unsymmetric matrices we required twice of much memory
because we need to store the full matrix and not only the upper
triangular half so the memory required doubled and also the CPU
time increases maybe about 1.5 time. So with the symmetric
formulation this allow to maintain the symmetric nature of the
matrices so the memory requirement doesnt double and the CPU
time doesnt increase.

The table on the right compares the

overall solution time speed-up for 275k
DOF solved on dual quad-core Intel Xeon
E5530.

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Cores
1
1
2
2
4
4

Solver
Sparse
Sparse
Sparse
Sparse
Sparse
Sparse

Option
Unsym
Sym
Unsym
Sym
Unsym
Sym

Speed-up
1.00
1.64
1.00
1.56
1.00
1.50

Symmetric formulation
The symmetric coupling algorithm is based on the
introduction of a displacement potential : u
This causes an increase of the matrices size but leads to
symmetric matrices and then reduces the elapsed time of
the simulation.
All the elements in the model must use the symmetric
formulation (impossible to mix unsymmetric and
symmetric formulation).
M S
2 0
0

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0
0 u K S
0
0 p RT

0 0 K F
0

March 4, 2014

R
1
MF

K FT

0 u

K F p 0

Acoustic Structure Coupling

Eigenvalues of steel cavity with water
mode
Unsymmetric Arnoldi (Hz)
Symmetric Lanczos(Hz)

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1st

63.1713

63.1713

2nd

224.299

224.299

3rd

364.550

364.550

4th

515.053

515.053

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Eigensolvers

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Eigensolvers
Block Lanczos, Unsymmetric and Damped solvers can used
depending on the model:
Block Lanczos: pure acoustic or FSI with symmetric
algorithm without viscosity, impedance or attenuation
surface

Unsymmetric: FSI with unsymmetric algorithm

Damped: pure acoustic or FSI with viscosity, impedance,

attenuation surface or absorbing elements.

Block Lanczos
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Unsymmetric

Damped

Frequency range
The stiffness-coupled symmetric formulation may lead to the
divergence for FSI eigen problem with zero beginning
frequency. So it is recommend to assign the beginning
frequency (e.g. 1.E-02).

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Sloshing

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Sloshing
In fluid dynamics, slosh refers to the movement of liquid inside another
object (which is, typically, also undergoing motion). Strictly speaking,
the liquid must have a free surface to constitute a slosh
dynamics problem, where the dynamics of the liquid can interact with
the container to alter the system dynamics significantly.
Important examples include propellant slosh in spacecraft tanks
and rockets (especially upper stages), and cargo slosh in ships and
trucks transporting liquids (for example oil and gasoline).

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Sloshing
Assuming that the actual surface is at an elevation relative to the
mean surface in z-direction, the pressure for a sloshing (free)
surface is given by:

p F g
The acoustic fluid matrix equation with sloshing effect is expressed
as:

Ms
2

T

R
0

Cs
j
M f S F
0

Where: S F

0
g

SL

0 K s

C f 0

N N T dS

is the acoustic sloshing mass matrix

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R u
0

K f p

Acceleration
As previously seen an acceleration has to
be defined to take into account sloshing
effects.
An acceleration load is available in
Boundary Conditions (Note: the standard
Acceleration load isnt available in Modal
analyses).

The component of the acceleration are

expressed in the global coordinate system.

Note: MAPDL Command :

ACEL,CompX,CompY,CompZ

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Free Surface
Man can define the free surfaces using the Free Surface
object available in the Boundary Conditions menu:

Note: MAPDL Command : SF,,FREE

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Postprocessing

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Acoustic Pressure
The pressure is the degree of freedom of the
acoustic problem resolution.
It can be post processed using the Acoustics
Pressure object available in the Results
menu.
Man can then choose the mode to display and
the scoped geometry in the detail view.
The corresponding frequency is also reported in
the detail view.
The result can also be animated.

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Acoustic Velocity
The acoustics velocity is calculated as follow:

It is possible to post-process the acoustics velocity in

X, Y, Z direction or the sum using the corresponding
objects available in Results menu. Displaying the
acoustic velocity vectors is also possible.
Note: By default velocities arent stored in the result
file. You need to modify the output controls of the
analysis and ask to store the stresses to make it
available

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Acoustic Velocity
It can be post processed using one the Acoustics Velocity object
available in the Results menu.
Man can then choose the mode to display and the scoped geometry
in the detail view.
The corresponding frequency is also reported in the detail view.
The result can also be animated.

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