NUMERICAL MODELING OF WAVEGUIDES EMBEDDED IN INFINITE MEDIA

This paper presents recently developed approaches for the numerical simulation of guided elastic waves in structures that are embedded in infinite fluid or solid media. The waveguide is described by the Scaled Boundary Finite Element Method, which is a general semi-analytical method that requires discretization of the boundary only. The influence of the surrounding medium on the wave propagation inside the waveguide is accounted for by appropriate boundary conditions. It is demonstrated that for many practical applications a formulation based on simple dashpot boundary conditions yields sufficiently accurate results. To increase accuracy for fluids, an alternative formulation based on exact boundary conditions and inverse iteration is proposed. This approach is of use particularly if the acoustic properties of the waveguide and surrounding material are similar.