On effective mobilities in the prediction of structure-borne sound transmission between a source structure and a receiving structure, part I: Theoretical background and basic experimental studies

Abstract The general mobility matrix formulation of the problem of multi-point, coupled structures is discussed and some of the disadvantages are emphasized. Two principally different ways of rearranging the general mobility matrix into corresponding effective mobilities, useful for expressing the vibratory power input to the receiving structure, are investigated theoretically. The two concepts of effective mobility, namely effective point mobility in which the points are considered individually with the interaction between the points taken into account and effective overall mobility in which a space averaged point mobility is deduced, have also been verified experimentally. In addition, some useful approximations of these quantities are derived.