Efficient Infinite Elements for Exterior Acoustics

The numerical prediction of vibrations, especially of the air or water surrounding structures like vehicles, ships, submarines, or machines in general is of increasing importance. Industries as diverse as the construction, automotive, ship-building or offshore industry employ numerical methods that predict such vibrations for the development of new products. Especially in the lower- and mid-frequency range for exterior acoustics simulations, the so-calles Boundary Element Mtheod (BEM) is already in use. This method is knwon to offer high accuracy, while the stability for transient phenomena and the overall efficiency is not truly satisfying. Especially the dificiencies of the method in the time domain is yet more pronounced, since the simulation of nonlinear effects is strongly gaining importance. For example, the simulation of nonlinearities using the Finite Element Method (FEM) is already a widely adopted approach in today`s design and development processes. But also the certainly time-consuming solution of dense systems of equations arising in the BEM is hindering the widespread adoption of this method.