Efficient modeling of flat and homogeneous acoustic treatments for vibroacoustic finite element analysis. Finite size correction by image sources

This work is concerned with the hybrid finite element-transfer matrix methodology recently proposed by the authors. The main assumption behind this hybrid method consists in neglecting the actual finite lateral extent of the acoustic treatment. Although a substantial increase of the computational efficiency can be achieved, the effect of the reflected field (i.e. finite size effects) may be sometimes important, preventing the hybrid model from giving quantitative meaningful results. For this reason, a correction to account for wave reflections at the lateral boundaries of the acoustic treatment is sought. It is shown in the present paper that the image source method can be successfully employed to retrieve such finite size effects. Indeed, such methodology is known to be effective when the response of the system is a smooth function of the frequency, like in the case of highly dissipative acoustic treatments. The main concern of this paper is to assess accuracy and feasibility of the image source method in the context of acoustic treatments modeling. Numerical examples show that the performance of the standard hybrid model can be substantially improved by the proposed correction without deteriorating excessively the computational efficiency.