Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) is an established
high-frequency analysis technique for generating acoustic and
vibration response predictions in the automotive, aerospace,
machinery, and ship industries. SEA offers unique NVH prediction
and target-setting capabilities as a design tool at early stages of
vehicle design where geometry is still undefined and evolving and
no prototype hardware is available yet for testing. The exact
frequencies at which SEA can be used effectively vary according to
the size and the amount of damping in the vehicle subsystems;
however, for automotive design the ability to predict acoustic and
vibration responses due to both airborne and structure-borne
sources has been established to frequencies of 500 Hz and
above.
This paper presents the background, historical use, and current
industrial applications of structure-borne SEA. The history and
motivation for the development of structure-borne SEA are
discussed. The theoretical formulation and early laboratory
validation studies are described. Early and current applications of
structure-borne SEA for ship, machinery, aerospace, and automotive
industry are presented. Examples illustrating typical and expected
accuracy of mean response and variance compared to measurement are
given. The advantages and limitations to using structure-borne SEA
are summarized. Hybrid techniques with the ability to extend the
accurate prediction range using SEA together with test or FEA data
are presented.