Inverse Patch Transfer Functions Method as a Tool for Source Field Identification

Many methods to detect, quantify, or reconstruct acoustic sources exist in the literature and are widely used in industry (near-field acoustic holography, inverse boundary element method, etc.). However, the source identification in a reverberant or nonanechoic environment on an irregularly shaped structure is still an open issue. In this context, the inverse patch transfer functions (iPTF) method first introduced by Aucejo et al. (2010, " Identification of Source Velocities on 3D Structures in Non-Anechoic Environments: Theoretical Background and Experimental Validation of the Inverse Patch Transfer Functions Method, " J. Sound Vib., 329(18), pp. 3691–3708) can be a suitable method. Indeed, the iPTF method has been developed to identify source velocity on complex geometries and in a nonanechoic environment. However, to obtain good results, the application of the method must follow rigorous criteria that were not fully investigated yet. In addition, as it was first defined, the iPTF method only provides source velocity while wall pressure or intensity should also give useful information to engineers. In the present article, a procedure to identify wall pressure and intensity of the source without any additional measurement is proposed. This procedure only needs simple numerical postprocessing. Using this new intensity identification, the influence of background noise, evanescent waves, and mesh discretization are illustrated on numerical examples. Finally, an experiment on a vibrating plate is shown to illustrate the iPTF procedure.