Effect of a fluid layer on the sound radiation of a plate and its active control

In this paper, a baffled plate facing a layer of fluid is used to investigate the effects of the radiating environment on the plate׳s sound radiation and its active control. By varying the thickness of the fluid layer, different radiation environments are presented to the plate, resulting in a variation in the efficiencies and shapes of the radiation modes of the plate. As the design of feed-forward control of the radiated sound power and of feedback control of the vibration velocity or volume velocity is limited by the properties of the secondary control path (an open-loop frequency response function), the performance of the control system may be deteriorated if a controller optimally designed for one radiation environment is used for a different environment. The effects of radiation environment on the properties of the secondary control path and performance of active control are investigated.