May 21-25, 2007

UNESP – Campus de São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil

A SYMMETRIC MODAL REDUCTION METHOD FOR COUPLED

STRUCTURE-ACOUSTIC FINITE ELEMENT MODELS

Carlos d’Andrade Souto 1, Renato Pavanello 2

1
Division of Integration and Tests - Institute of Aeronautics and Space, São José dos Campos, Brazil, souto@iae.cta.br
2
Computational Mechanics Department, Mechanical Engineering Faculty, Campinas State University, pava@fem.unicamp.br

Abstract: In this paper we proposed a modal reduction The vibrations of an elasto - acoustic system can be
method that uses a symmetric formulation. The method was described by the finite element method using the u-p
implemented in a C++ finite element code. The formulation [6]:
eigenanalysis of a test problem are performed and compared
with the results obtained by the multipurpose versatile code
ANSYS 7.0 by direct solution. [M ] [0] {u} [K ] − [L] {u} {Fu } (1)
+ =
Keywords: Fluid structure interaction, Modal Reduction, ρ F [L] [E ] {p}
T
[0] [H ] {p} {F }p

Coupled Models, Finite elements

1. INTRODUCTION Where [M] is the structure’s mass matrix, [K] is the

structure’s stifness matrix, [E] is the fluid volumetric matrix,
Many formulations were developed on the last three [H] is the fluid compressibility matrix, [L] is the structure-
decades for the finite – element analysis of elasto – acoustic fluid interface matrix, {u} is the structure nodal
systems. Special efforts were dedicated to develop new displacement vector, {p} is the fluid nodal pressure vector,
symmetric formulations that can replace the non {Fu} is the vector which contains the external nodal forces
symmetrical u-p formulation (which uses displacements and applied to the structure and {Fp} is the vector which
pressures as nodal variables respectively for the structure contains the acoustic nodal sources.
and the fluid domains) as can be seen in [1] and [2]. Natural frequencies and modes can be calculated by the
However, the symmetric formulations already developed eigenvalue problem derived from the homogeneous version
have some drawbacks [3-4]. of Eq.1. Due to the non symmetry of the global matrices of
An elasto - acoustic can also be analyzed by the modal Eq.1 standard algorithms cannot be used and the
approach, in the same way as is done for structural systems. computational cost became too much high for equations
Many modal reduction methods were proposed and some with great number of degrees of freedom.
can be seen in [4]. In some of these methods the matrices of
the modal model are symmetric but some matrix To overcome these difficulties some symmetric
calculations must be performed to assemble the matrices or formulations were developed like the upϕ formulation [7]:
to recover the original mode shapes [2], [5]. Almost all of
these methods avoid the calculation of the whole model by
using the uncoupled structural and acoustic modes as modal
[M ] [0] [0] {u} [K ] [0] − [L] {u} {Fu } (2)
basis.
[0] 1
[H ] [0] {ϕ} + [0] [0] [H ] {ϕ } = {F }ϕ
ρf
In this work we start from a symmetric formulation with
[0] [0] [0] {p} − [L] [H ]
T
−
1
[E ] {p} {F }p
displacements and displacement potentials as nodal ρf
variables and obtain a modal reduction with global
symmetric matrices for the reduced model. The method was
implemented in a object oriented C++ finite element code In this formulation the fluid is described by two nodal
(MEFLAB++) built in the Computational Mechanics variables: pressure and potential of displacements (ϕ). The
Department. Two numerical examples with light and heavy nodal variables can be approximated using the uncoupled
fluid are analyzed and the results are compared to the ones structural and acoustic modes by:
obtained by the direct solution.
{u} {η s } [φ s ] [0] [0] {η s }
{ϕ } = [Φ ] {ηϕ } = [0] [φϕ ] [0] {ηϕ } (3)
2. THEORETICAL FORMULATION OF FLUID – { p} {η }
p [0] [0] [φ p ] {η p }
STRUCTURE INTERACTION

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 MODOS ACÚSTICOS DE CÂMARAS DE COMBUSTÃO
DE MOTORES FOGUETE A PROPULSÃO LÍQUIDA
Carlos d’Andrade Souto, Renato Pavanello
Where [ φ s ], [ φ f ] and [ φϕ ] are respectively the uncoupled body mode but it is not displayed. The natural frequencies of
the uncoupled domains are compared to the ones of the
structure, pressure and potentials of displacement uncoupled coupled system in Table2. The first 4 uncoupled mode
modes. shapes are displayed in Figure 3.
Inserting Eq.3 in Eq.2 and pre – multiplying both sides by
[Φ ]T we have: Symbol Value Unity
Number of degrees of freedom Ngdl 599
[m] [0] [0] {u}
1 Structure Young’s modulus E 0.75 x 1011 N/m2
[0] [h] [0] {ϕ} +
(4)
ρf Structure’s specific mass 2768 Kg/m3
[0] [0] [0] {p}
s

Sound velocity on the fluid * C 340/1500 m/s

[k ] [0] − [l ] {ηu } [φu ] {Fu }

T
Fluid’s specific mass * f 1.225/1000 Kg/m3
[0] [0] [h] {η } = [φϕ ] {Fϕ }
T
ϕ Dimension a a 0.360 m
− [l ] [h ]
T
−
1
[e] {η }
p [φ ] {F }
p
T
p
Dimension b b 0.500 m
ρf
Dimension c c 0.720 m
After eliminating the pressure degrees of freedom, Eq.4 Dimension e e 0.006 m
becomes:
* (air/water)
[m] [0] {η s }
[k ] + ρ f [l ][e]−1 [l ]T [l ][e]−1 [h]T − λ [0] 1 =
[h][e]−1 [l ]T [h][e]−1 [h]T [h] {η ϕ } (5) c
ρ f

[φ s ]T {Fs }
fluido

[φ ] {F }
ϕ
T
ϕ

estrutura b
The matrix [e]-1 is calculated by inverting the matrix [E] a
already diagonalized by the uncoupled acoustic modal
vectors:

[e]−1 = ([φ f ]T [E ][φ f ])

−1
(6) e

Figure 1 – Example 1 dimensions

Since [e] is a diagonal matrix the computational effort of
performing this matrix inversion is quite small. The reduced
modal model described by Eq.5 is symmetric.
The model described by Eq. (5) is the reduced modal
version of condensed symmetric formulation described in
[2]. In [8] the relations between the three field formulations
like the one of Eq.2 and symmetric condensed formulations
have been shown. These formulations have some interesting
numerical properties [3-4].

3. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES

3.1 Example 1
Figure 2 - Finite Element Mesh of the example 1

This example is composed by a two dimensional

acoustic cavity surrounded by rigid walls with an elastic
plate inside (where the fluid-structure coupling is applied).
The geometry of the cavity and the plate is shown in Figure1
and the finite element mesh used in the analysis is displayed
in the Figure2. The mesh data and material properties are
written in Table1.
The coupled system is analyzed with the cavity filled
with a light fluid (air) and a heavy one (water). Some
eigenmodes of the model described in Figure1 are calculated
by direct solution and using the modal reduction of Eq.5.
The acoustic uncoupled modal basis includes the fluid rigid

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 May 21-25, 2007
UNESP – Campus de São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil

Table 2 – Natural frequencies in Hz (structure uncoupled, fluid In Table3 the natural frequencies of the coupled system
uncoupled and complete coupled system) calculated without modal calculated using the proposed modal reduction are compared
reduction for the example 1
to the results obtained by the direct solution calculated by
ANSYS. Two modal basis were used, one for each fluid. It
Frequencies (Hz)
can be noticed that the results for the cavity filled with air
Mode Uncoupled Uncoupled Coupled Uncoupled Coupled shows very good agreement with the results obtained by
Structure system Fluid system direct solution while for the cavity filled with water the
Fluid (air) (air) (water) (water)
errors are bigger for all modes.
1 82,30 138,53 81,01 611,14 17,77
Table 3 - Frequencies calculated by modal reduction for the example 1
2 516,67 339,78 139,92 1499,01 156,98
3 1453,73 378,35 339,78 1669,20 559,61
Air Water
4 2871,92 480,44 378,02 2119,60 1015,87 8 Error Direct 30 Error Direct
structure (%) Solution structure (%) Solution
5 3620,82 523,83 480,44 2311,02 1326,21 modes modes
6 4800,80 587,66 504,98 2592,64 1498,73 12 50
acoustic acoustic
7 7273,30 673,38 535,65 2970,80 1819,56 modes modes
8 10330,72 681,84 587,66 3008,13 2118,95 Original Original
9 10886,82 741,96 673,71 3273,37 2434,02 size of size of
matrices: matrices:
10 14021,14 834,30 681,84 3680,74 2591,20
599x599 599x599
11 18226,12 880,87 742,07 3886,20 3007,78
Reduced Reduced
12 18397,04 993,23 834,30 4381,91 3161,77 model model
matrices matrices
size : size :
20x20 80x80
For a better visualization, the structure and the fluid
domains are not in the same scale in Figure 3. 1 81.20 0.23 81.01 18.44 3.65 17.77

2 139.93 0.01 139.92 177.29 11.45 156.98

3 339.78 0.00 339.78 649.61 13.85 559.61

Mode Structure Fluid
1 82,30 Hz 611,14 Hz (water) / 138,53 Hz (air) 4 378.02 0.00 378.02 1064.36 4.56 1015.87

5 480.44 0.00 480.44 1498.82 11.52 1326.21

6 505.93 0.19 504.98 1618.34 7.39 1498.73

7 536.31 0.12 535.65 1866.16 2.50 1819.56

8 587.66 0.00 587.66 2119.31 0.02 2118.95

2 516,67 Hz 1499,01 Hz / 339,78Hz (air)
9 673.71 0.00 673.71 2591.53 6.08 2434.02

10 681.84 0.00 681.84 3008.08 13.86 2591.20

11 742.07 0.00 742.07 3110.50 3.30 3007.78

12 834.30 0.00 834.30 3214.74 1.65 3161.77

3 1453,73 Hz 1669,20 Hz / 378,35 Hz (air)

The mode shapes calculated by direct solution and by the
modal reduction proposed with 8 structural and 12 acoustic
modes for the cavity filled with air are displayed in Figure4.
In Figure 5 the modes calculated using 150 structural and
150 acoustic modes for the cavity filled with water are
shown. Due to some software characteristics the structural
4 2871,92 Hz 2119,60 Hz / 480,44Hz (air)
mesh is plotted undeformed in the coupled modes by
MEFLAB++ and so some slightly differences appear on
mode’s appearance but even so, good agreement can be
clearly noticed between these the modal reduction results
and the reference ones. For the same fluid, the same color
map scale was used for both solution methods.

Figure 3 – Uncoupled mode shapes of example 1

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 MODOS ACÚSTICOS DE CÂMARAS DE COMBUSTÃO
DE MOTORES FOGUETE A PROPULSÃO LÍQUIDA
Carlos d’Andrade Souto, Renato Pavanello
Modes Structural Structural Acoustic coupled modes (direct solution) Acoustic coupled modes (Reduced

coupled modes coupled modes Model)

(direct solution) (Reduced

Model)

1 81,01 Hz 81,20 Hz 81,01 Hz 81,20 Hz

2 139,92 Hz 139,93 Hz 139,92 Hz 139,93 Hz

3 339,78 Hz 339,78 Hz 339,78 Hz 339,78 Hz

4 378,02 Hz 378,02 Hz 378,02 Hz 378,02 Hz

Figure 4 – Mode shapes calculated by direct solution and using modal reduction for the example 1 (coupled system with air)

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 May 21-25, 2007
UNESP – Campus de São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil

Modes Structural Structural coupled Acoustic coupled modes (direct Acoustic coupled modes (Reduced Model)

coupled modes modes (Reduced solution)

(direct solution) Model)

1 17,77 Hz 17,78 Hz 17,77 Hz 17,78 Hz

2 156,98 Hz 157,56 Hz 156,98 Hz 157,56 Hz

3 559,61 Hz 562,70 Hz 559,61 Hz 562,70 Hz

4 1015,87 Hz 1017,14 Hz 1015,87 Hz 1017,14 Hz

Figure 5 – Mode shapes calculated by direct solution and using modal reduction for the example 1 (coupled system with water)

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 MODOS ACÚSTICOS DE CÂMARAS DE COMBUSTÃO
DE MOTORES FOGUETE A PROPULSÃO LÍQUIDA
Carlos d’Andrade Souto, Renato Pavanello
3.2. Convergence analysis written in Table4. The coupled system is analyzed with the
cavity filled with a heavy fluid (water). Some eigenmodes of
the model described in Figure9 are calculated by direct
In figures 6 and 7 the relation between the error and
solution and using the modal reduction of Eq.5. The acoustic
the modal basis is analyzed. The error for each mode is
uncoupled modal basis includes the fluid rigid body mode
displayed for some modal basis. It can be easily seen that
but it is not displayed. The natural frequencies of the
the error decreases when the modal basis is augmented. In
uncoupled domains are compared to the ones of the coupled
this case, the number of fluid modes (nf) is more important
system in Table5. The first 4 uncoupled mode shapes are
than the number of structural modes (ns). Once the
displayed in Figure 10.
structural modes frequencies becomes much higher than the
acoustic ones when the mode number increases, the low Table 4 Mesh and material data for the example 2
frequency band behavior is dominated by many acoustic
modes and a small number of the first structural modes. For
Symbol Value Unity
the cavity filled with air, even small modal basis produces Number of degrees of freedom ngdl 772
good results. For the coupled system with heavy fluid,
richer modal basis should be used to achieve good results. Structure Young’s modulus E 0,75 x 1011 N/m2
Structure’s specific mass s 2768 Kg/m3
0.3
Sound velocity on the fluid C 1500 m/s
Error (%)

ns=8/nf=12
ns=8/nf=15
0.25
ns=8/nf=40 Fluid’s specific mass f 1000 Kg/m3
ns=20/nf=20
0.2
ns=20/nf=40 Dimension c c 3,5 m
Dimension d d 2,0 m
0.15
Dimension e e 0,2 m
Erro(%)

c
0.1

0.05

fluido
0

-0.05
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 estrutura
Modo
mode

d
Figure 6 - Frequency error s for some modal basis used for the
example 1 (coupled system with air)
e
Error (%)

ns =30/nf=50
14 ns =30/nf=150
ns =90/nf=100
Figure 8 – Example 2 dimensions
ns =120/nf= 120
12 ns =150/nf= 150

10

8 fluid
Erro(%)

4
structure
2

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
M odo mode
Figure 7 - Frequency error s for some modal basis used for the
example 1 (coupled system with water) Figure 9 - Finite Element Mesh of the example 2

3.2. Example 2 and complete coupled system) calculated without modal

reduction for the example 2

This two dimensional example is composed by a fluid

cavity surrounded by rigid walls in its left and right sides, by
a free upper surface and by an elastic plate in its bottom
surface (where the fluid-structure coupling is applied). The
geometry of the cavity and the plate is shown in Figure8 and
the finite element mesh used in the analysis is displayed in
the Figure9. The mesh data and material properties are

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 May 21-25, 2007
UNESP – Campus de São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil

Table 5 - Natural frequencies in Hz the results shows good agreement with the results obtained
(structure uncoupled, fluid uncoupled by direct solution.
The mode shapes calculated by direct solution and by the
Frequencies
modal reduction proposed with 8 structural and 40 acoustic
Mode Structure Fluid Coupled
modes for the cavity filled with air are displayed in
Figure11. The same color map scale is used for both
1 90,17 187,63 46,11 solution methods. The good agreement between these the
2 242,73 284,88 152,33 modal reduction results and the reference ones can be easily
noticed.
3 462,21 468,37 254,76
4 738,91 566,12 350,66 Table 6 - Frequencies calculated by modal reduction for the example 1

5 745,48 605,34 373,60 8 structural Error 8 structural Error Direct

modes (%) modes (%) solution
6 1064,55 671,55 526,34 12 acoustic 40 acoustic
7 1431,89 710,39 555,71 modes modes
Original size Original size
8 1492,10 858,06 630,17 of matrices: of matrices:
772 772
9 1835,06 881,94 699,91 Reduced Reduced
model model
10 2241,02 954,31 731,41
matrices matrices size:
11 2269,55 978,09 738,50 size: 20 48

1 46,89 3,16 46,11 1,51 46,11

The first 12 uncoupled structural modes lie in a frequency 2 155,77 4,16 152,34 2,00 152,33
3 262,01 4,54 254,97 1,91 254,76
band between 90 Hz and 2750 Hz while the frequency band
4 358,49 3,71 350,87 1,62 350,66
for the first 12 uncoupled fluid modes goes from 180 Hz to 5 384,69 5,28 373,61 2,47 373,60
1050 Hz. This should make the coupling effect strong 6 538,43 3,30 526,87 1,18 526,34
among the first 12 coupled modes. In Figure 10 some 7 571,15 4,42 556,07 1,83 555,71
uncoupled modes are displayed. 8 640,46 2,69 631,11 1,25 630,17
9 712,99 3,42 700,05 1,64 699,91
Mode Structure Fluid 10 745,62 3,25 731,79 1,43 731,41
1 90,17 Hz 187,63 Hz 11 751,32 2,55 739,88 1,05 738,50
12 769,62 3,13 745,63 0,01 745,63

3.2. Convergence analysis

2 242,73 Hz 284,88 Hz In Figure12 the relation between the error and the modal
basis is analyzed. The error for each mode is displayed for
some modal basis. In the same way to example 1, the
number of fluid modes in the modal basis is more important
than its structural counterpart, and the error is reduced when
the first is increased.
3 462,21 Hz 468,37 Hz

4 738,91 Hz 566,12 Hz

Figure 10 – Uncoupled mode shapes of example 2

In Table6 the natural frequencies of the coupled system

calculated using the proposed modal reduction are compared
to the results obtained by the direct solution calculated by
ANSYS. Two modal basis were used. It can be noticed that

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 MODOS ACÚSTICOS DE CÂMARAS DE COMBUSTÃO
DE MOTORES FOGUETE A PROPULSÃO LÍQUIDA
Carlos d’Andrade Souto, Renato Pavanello

Modes Structural coupled modes Structural coupled modes Acoustic coupled modes (direct Acoustic coupled modes
(direct solution) (Reduced Model) solution) (Reduced Model)

1 46,11 Hz 46,11 Hz 46,11 Hz 46,11 Hz

2 152,33 Hz 152,34 Hz 152,33 Hz 152,34 Hz

3 254,76 Hz 254,97 Hz 254,76 Hz 254,97 Hz

4 350,66 Hz 350,87 Hz 350,66 Hz 350,87 Hz

Figure 11- Mode shapes calculated by direct solution and using modal reduction for the example 2

solution. A convergence analysis was done by using several

6
modal basis. The frequencies and mode shapes calculated
ns=8/nf=12 with the proposed method results shown good agreement
ns=8/nf=15
5 ns=8/nf=40 with the results calculated by the direct solution, even for
ns=20/nf=20
ns=20/nf=40 small data basis but the performance was better for the
4 elasto –acoustic case (system with light fluid).
Erro(%)(%)

Comparing the error obtained for the examples 1 and 2

Error

with heavy fluid, it can be noticed that the errors calculated

2 for the example 2 are smaller than the errors obtained for
the analysis of example 1. So, with heavy fluids, the method
1
performs better when an essential boundary condition is
applied to the fluid domain.
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
mode
Modo For similar modal basis, the smaller errors were
Figure 12 - Frequency error s for some modal basis obtained for the example 1 with air, followed by the
used for the example 2
example 2. The biggest errors have occured in the
calculation of the example 1 with water. By analyzing the
4. CONCLUSIONS fluid uncoupled and coupled mode shapes of the three
cases, one can see that the frequency errors’ magnitude is
directly related to how strongly the coupling affects the
A strategy for modal reduction with symmetric matrices fluid mode shapes. When the modes were more severely
for elasto-acoustic systems was proposed. The direct changed, it was harder to approximate the fluid coupled
computation of coupled modes was avoided by using modes with the uncoupled ones and larger modal basis were
uncoupled structure and fluid modes as modal basis. The required.
eigenanalysis of a numerical example was performed and Some strategies can be proposed to improve the
the results were compared to the ones obtained by direct method’s performance for systems with dense fluid.

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UNESP – Campus de São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil

Additional vectors can be included in the modal basis in

order to obtain a better approximation for the coupled fluid
behavior.
Additional tests should be performed to verify the
method’s performance in different conditions. It could be
interesting to compare the effect of apply different boundary
conditions in the same mesh. The size mesh can also be an
important parameter, specially for the heavy fluid systems.
Since the uncoupled acoustic mode frequencies are higher if
the fluid is heavier, the errors in the mode calculation will
be more affected by the size of the elements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de
Pesquisas (CNPq).

REFERENCES
[1] Everstine, G.C.,1997 Finite Element Formulations of
Structural Acoustics Problems. Computers & Structures
England v.65 n.3 p.307-321, 1997
[2] Morand, H.J.-P., Ohayon, R.,1995 Fluid Structure
Interaction John Wiley & Sons, Paris, 1995
[3] Souto, C. A. , Ferreira, J. V., Pavanello, R. 2004 Estudo
comparativo entre as formulações para análise de sistemas
acoplados fluido-estrutura Anais do III CONEM Congresso
Nacional de Engenharia Mecânica, Belém, Brasil, 2004 (in
portuguese)
[4] Souto, C. A, 2005 Modal Methods for Elasto – Acoustic
Cyclic Symmetric Systems, Mechanical Engineering Faculty/
State University of Campinas, PHD Thesis (in Portuguese)
[5] Sandberg, G.,1995 A new strategy for solving fluid -
structure problems International Journal for Numerical
Methods in Engineering, Vol. 38, pp.357-370.
[6] Zienkiewicz, O.C.; Newton, 1969, E. Coupled
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Stuttgart June 1969 pp.359-379
[7] Morand, H.J.-P., Ohayon, R.,1979 Substructure
variational analysis of the vibrations of coupled fluid –
structure systems. Finite elements results Int. Journal of
Numerical Methods in Engineering, 14, pp 741-755, 1979
[8] Felippa, C. A. , 1985 Symmetrization of the contained
compressible-fluid vibration eigenproblem,
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