Journal of Sound and Vibration (1994) 178(4), 483-500 SPATIALLY AVERAGED FREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES FOR ONE- AND TWO-DIMENSIONAL STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS R. S. LANGLEY Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO9 SNH, England (Received 30 March 1993, and in final form 26 August 1993) Expressions are derived for the envelopes which enclose various spatially averaged frequency response functions, The ultimate aim is to provide a scaling factor which may be applied to the results yielded by Statistical Energy Analysis, Asymptotic Modal Analysis, or Skudrzyk’s mean-value method, to convert frequency averaged values to either maximum or minimum response estimates. It is shown that certain semi-empirical scaling factors which have been used previously may in fact be derived analytically by either modal ‘or wave methods. These factors are found to yield reliable results for one-dimensional components such as beams or rods. For two-dimensional structures, such as plates, it is found that repeated natural frequencies (degeneracy) and irregular natural frequency spacing can have a significant effect on the response envelopes. By making use of the existing literature concerning statistical room acoustics, revised expressions for the response envelopes are derived which incorporate these effects, and good agreement with computed frequency response curves is demonstrated for rod, beam and plate elements. 1. INTRODUCTION High frequency structural vibrations are characterized by the fact that the wavelength of the structural deformation is much smaller than the overall dimensions of the structure. In this situation standard analysis techniques, such as the finite element method (FEM) [I], become impracticable due to the excessive number of degrees of freedom needed to ‘model the structure; for example, Roozen [2] has shown that a FEM model having around 530 000 degrees of freedom is needed to study the vibration of a 2m length of an aircraft fuselage at frequencies up to 225 Hz. A number of alternative, more approximate, analysis techniques have been developed to overcome such difficulties, and these include Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) [3], Asymptotic Modal Analysis (AMA) [4-7], and Skudrayk’s mean-value method [8, 9]. In SEA the structure is divided into various “subsystems”, and the method aims to find the spatial and frequency average of the kinetic energy density of each subsystem. In AMA, the classical modal analysis technique is applied at high frequencies, and various summations which arise in the method are evaluated asymptotically. Again, the concern tends to be with frequency averaged quantities, although more detailed consideration is given to spatial variation than in SEA. Skudrzyk’s mean-value method yields the “characteristic admittance” of a structure, which in most cases is equivalent to the admittance of an infinitely extended structure (although this may be modified by the consideration of image sources {8}). The characteristic admittance again provides a spatially and frequency averaged measure of the behaviour of the structure. 483 (0022--460%/94/490483 + 18 $08.00/0 © 1994 Academie Press Limited484 R. 8. LANGLEY The present work is concerned with the variation with frequency of various spatially averaged frequency response functions. The ultimate aim is to provide a scaling factor which may be applied to the results yielded by SEA, AMA, or the mean-value method, to convert frequency averaged values to either maximum or minimum response estimates; practical situations occur in which an estimate of the worst expected response at a discrete frequency is required, one example being the response of an aircraft structure at the blade passing frequency of a propeller or rotor. Previously, Skudrzyk [8, 9] and Heron [10] have presented analytical scaling factors for the case of low modal overlap, while Skudrzyk has tabulated numerically obtained factors as a function of damping for the more general case (Table II, reference [8]). In addition, Girard and Defosse [11] have presented semi-empirical scaling factors which were applied with some success to a rod network. in what follows, analytical expressions are derived for the envelopes of the spatially averaged point mobility (or admittance) and kinetic energy density of a wide class of structure for any degree of modal overlap. It is shown that the semi-empirical scaling factors presented by Girard and Defosse [11], which are a function of the modal overlap factor alone, may in fact be derived analytically by either wave or modal methods, and additional results are obtained concerning the imaginary part of the point mobility. The derived frequency response envelopes are applied initially to a number of one- dimensional structural components, and excellent agreement with computed frequency response curves is obtained. A preliminary application to a two-dimensional component {a flat plate) then highlights a number of additional issues: the irregular natural frequency spacing which tends to occur for a two-dimensional component can significantly affect the frequency response envelopes, particularly at high modal overlap. Furthermore, repeated natural frequencies (or degeneracy) can affect the frequency response envelopes at both low and high modal overlap. By making use of the existing literature concerning statistical room acoustics [12-14], semi-empirical modifications are made to the envelopes to account for these factors, and good agreement is demonstrated with computed results for plates of various aspect ratio. 2, FREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES 2.1. MODAL REPRESENTATION OF THE RESPONSE ‘The response of a structure to a harmonic point load of amplitude P and frequency @ may generally be written in the form [15] x Poa(Xo)GalX) “= Daid-+in—o Q Here u(x) is the displacement of the structure at location x, , and ¢, represent the natural frequencies and mode shapes, 1 is the loss factor, and x; is the location of the point load. Itis implicit in equation (1) that the mode shapes have been scaled to unit generalized mass, so that f PPA X)Pm() OX = Sas Q) where p is the mass density, R is the span of the structure (the length or the area), and Sym is unity for n =m and zero otherwise. Depending on the dimension of the structure, the position variables x and xy may be either scalar or vector quantities. However, it is assumed here that in either case the response of the structure may be modelled’by a single variable, so that u and g, are scalars.FREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES 485, For light damping a typical term in equation (1) is large in the vicinity of w =, and fairly small elsewhere. This suggests that the denominator terms may be reasonably approximated as follows: o(1 + in) — @? = 2a(w, — @) + inw?. Q) ‘This approximation, which is valid in the region @ = w,, has previously becn employed by Lyon [16] and Skudrzyk [8]. With this approach, the temporal and spatial average of the kinetic energy density of the structure may be written in the form = (a Bde = (w2/ak) & Poe) T=(' 14a) {ples dx =(a 4B) Y lo, oF to" (4) where use has been made of equation (2). Equation (4) may be further averaged over the range of possible point load locations x, to yield (P'a'/4pR?) Td 5 i som Daa 1 (0, - oF +o The properties of this result will be investigated in section 2.2. The point mobility of the structure follows from equations (1) and (3) in the form (5) icou (Xo) G2) {no? + 2iw*(o, — @)} = Pa OT OO 6 ys om P )- : 4a"(o, oF +o" © The spatial average of the point mobility is thus given by i\e 17) This result will be considered further in section 2.3, ‘As mentioned in the Introduction, the spatial averaging procedures which are employed here are similar to those used in approximate analysis techniques such as Statistical Energy Analysis; the present analysis is restricted to the study of the frequency dependency of spatially averaged quantities. It can be noted that results very similar to equation (5) and (7) would be obtained were “rain on the roof” excitation rather than point loading considered; in this case there would be no need to average over the range of possible point load locations. The aim of the following sections is to derive envelope curves which enclose the frequency response functions which are given by equations (5) and (7). 2.2. ENVELOPES FOR THE KINETIC ENERGY DENSITY The kinetic energy density, as given by equation (5), will generally be an oscillatory function of frequency the maximum values of which are achieved in the vicinity of the resonant frequencies w,. At w =, for example, the result takes the form y (P05 /4pR?) (8) ‘The summation which appears on the right of this equation may be evaluated analytically by assuming that the natural frequencies are evenly spaced in the vicinity of w,. with the spacing between successive modes being equal to the inverse of the modal density, I/v say. With this approximation ©, — @, = (n — p)fv, and equation (8) becomes 1 Tr P60 SSE @)486, R. S. LANGLEY where m = a,11 is the modal overlap factor at frequency @,. If, as an approximation, the lower limit on the summation is extended to — oo, then use may be made of the identity (7 Soa n/a) coth (na). (10) Equation (9) thus becomes (with «, replaced by w) Tryax = (nvP?/8pcanR*) coth (nm /2). a) The replacement of the lower limit of the summation by —0o can be expected to be a valid approximation, since the contribution of the terms which have j <0 is small even when ©, corresponds to the first resonance of the system. The assumption that the modal spacing is constant in the vicinity of «, is less obviously valid for structures the modal density of which is a function of frequency, as in the case of a beam. However. the errors involved in this assumption can be expected to be smail provided that the modal density varies slowly with frequency in comparison to an individual frequency response function. For example, at @, +t Sy, the frequency response function for mode p reduces to less than 1% of its peak value, and therefore equation (13) can be expected to be valid provided that the modal density is reasonably constant over a frequency interval of 10nw, say, corresponding to ten times the modal bandwidth; modes which lie outside of this interval will make very little contribution to the response at w,. For a beam the modal density is proportional to w~'®, which means that the change in the modal density over a frequency interval Aw may be written as dv/v = — Aco/(2w). Now, if Aw = 10nw then Av/v = — Sn, and for realistic values of damping the percentage change in the modal density over ten modal bandwidths is small. Equation (11) can therefore be expected to apply to beams, and this is confirmed in section 2.4, Equation (11) represents an approximation to the upper envelope of the frequency response curve, since it was derived on the assumption that w is equal to a natural frequency (wv, in equation (8). It is useful to compare this result with the local frequency average of the kinetic energy density, <7) say, which may be obtained by integrating equation (5) over a small frequency band. The standard procedure for performing this type of integration is to assume that only those modes whose resonance frequencies lie within the frequency band contribute to the result (15}. This approach yields coth (xm /2). (12, 13) ), (18) The ratio of the resonant kinetic energy density to the uncorrelated or average result is thos 12, /\ Mel? = coth (xm /2), (19)488 R. S. LANGLEY which is in agreement with equation (13). At an anti-resonance, ¢ will be equal to x + 2a and the foregoing analysis can be repeated to yield the tanh(wm/2) factor which appears in equation (15). 2.3, ENVELOPES FOR THE AVERAGE MOBILITY The spatial average of the point mobility is given by equation (7). Envelopes for the real part of this quantity, Y, say, may be derived by direct analogy with the analysis of the previous section. Thus Frm = where (¥,) = nv/2pR is the local frequency average of ¥, [15]. It can be noted that the power input to the structure is PY,/2, which means that the envelopes of the power input curve are also proportional to coth (nm/2) and tanh (xm/2). The imaginary part of the point mobility, ¥; say, is rather more difficult to deal with, as both positive and negative values can occur. It follows from equation (7) that the pth term in the series is proportional to ¥,)coth (wm/2), —— Pemin = 2\2 _ @-o, +70,/2 Frees Ga) 4 4@, — ©, + no, 2 + Po?” @2) where only the dominant terms in 4 have been retained. If it is assumed that the natural frequencies occur with regular spacing 1/v, then equation (22) may be approximated by ; v\e j+m)/2 -(2. tmp 23) Fone (aa),2., TemBF + HPF 3) ‘The summation which appears in this result may be rearranged to allow the application of equation (10). After some algebra the following result ensues: nm. sin am Fane = (Fa) {scar ora =m — 08 ami \ @) An analogous consideration of the minimum values of ¥; yields Yin = — Yinox- These results are not quite complete, however. as the assumption of regular natural frequency spacing implies that ¥, has zero mean, which is not the case for structures the modal density is of which frequency dependent. This deficiency can be corrected by adding the mean value of ¥, to equation (24): to calculate the mean value it is convenient to re-express equation (7) in the form =_ (iw) 1 y-(“)y 25) Ga) on tin)? >) where the original form of the denominator which appears in equation (1) has been adopted. Rather than average equation (25) over a small frequency band, it is more convenient to obtain the “smooth” or average result by replacing the summation by an integral over «, [15]. To this end it can be noted that da =v dw, and thus = [io\f* vdeo, (all arm ©)FREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES: 489 The integral which appears in this equation may generally be performed by contour integration. If, for example, the modal density takes the form ¥ = aw}, then the integral may be written as * 2 AO, 1 = 2 deo, ; own du, = . . ow; de, . @7 Jo (1 + in) — Tee"), oi +ig)—w —1; the case s > 1 will be discussed This result is not valid for s = 1, where exp(ins: at the end of the present section. The integral which appears on the left of equation (27) may be evaluated by considering a contour which consists of the real axis and a semi-circle of infinite radius which encloses the upper half-plane. Provided that s <1, the integral around the semi-circle is zero, and contour integration yields = Wy om , which is again in agreement with existing analytical results [15]. The same situation will arise for any system which has s >I, such as an acoustic volume. 2.4. INITIAL APPLICATIONS The foregoing analysis has been applied initially to one-dimensional components, Typical results for the real and imaginary parts of Y are shown in Figures | and 2 for the case of the axial vibrations of a clamped-ciamped rod with loss factor 1 = 0-01. The non-dimensional frequency @ which appears in these figures is defined by 2 =oR,/(p/EA), where Ris the length of the rod, p is the mass per unit length, and Ea is the axial rigidity. The modal density with respect to this frequency is Gn/a2 = In, which implies that the modes are evenly spaced and further that the mean value of Y, is zero. The frequency range shown in Figure 1 covers the first 100 resonance modes, and the modal overlap factor m therefore ranges from 0 to 1. It can be seen that equations (20) and (21) yield accurate estimates of the envelopes of the frequency response curve over the full range of m, as might be expected for this relatively simple case. Results for the kinetic energy density T are not presented for either this example or those which follow, as T and Y; display almost identical behaviour. A restricted frequency range is shown in Figure 2, as Y, decreases rapidly with increasing frequency. Again, the approximate response envelopes, as predicted in this case by equation (29), are in excellent agreement with the exact response curve. The spatially averaged point mobitity ¥ of a simply supported beam with loss factor 1 =0-01 is shown in Figures 3 and 4. In this case the non-dimensional frequency is Q =cR*/(p/El), where R is the length of the beam, p is the mass per unit length,490 R, S, LANGLEY Ty Ta i log (Fq/< Ye >) 0 50 100 150 7200) 250 3007 2 Figure 1. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a rod. and EJ is the flexural rigidity. The modal density with respect to this frequency is 4n/AQ = 1/(2x,/Q). The frequency range shown in Figure 3 covers the first 200 resonance modes, which implies that the modal overlap factor again ranges between 0 and |. It can be seen that the results yielded by equations (20) and (21) are as accurate for this case as for the rod, even though the modal density varies with frequency. The results for ¥, over a more restricted frequency range are shown in Figure 4. Again, equation (29) yields a good Wye ta> 0 510 15S 2 Figure 2. The imaginary part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a rod.FREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES 491 log (We/< Fp >) 9 5 ) 2x 104 Figure 3. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a beam, Low resolution hs reduced the value of some of the peaks at very low frequencies. estimate of the envelope of the response curve; in this case the non-constant modal density implies that the mean value of ¥, is non-zero. An indication of the performance of equations (20) and (21) when applied to a two-dimensional structural component is given by Figure 5, which shows the real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a square plate with loss factor 7 = 0-01, The non-dimensional frequency which appears in this figute is defined by Q = oL*/(p/D), Wey > ° 300" TO 1300 Toe 3500 3000 Figure 4. The imaginary part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a beam,492 R. 8. LANGLEY log Fa/< Ye >) 0 500 1000-1500 2000-2500 30003500 a Figure 5. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a square plate: inner envelope curves, equations (20) and (21); outer envelope curves, equations (20) and (21) with the use of m/2. where L is the side length, p is the mass per unit area and D is the flexural rigidity. The modal density with respect to this frequency is én /6@ = 1/4x. which means that the frequency range shown in Figure 5 covers the first 300 natural frequencies (0 3, [19]) the mean squared pressure has an exponential distribution. This result relates to the pressure at a fixed point caused by a source at some other position and it is not therefore immediately applicable to the present study, where spatially averaged quantities are considered. Lyon [16] has shown that if the natural frequencies conform to the Poisson model, then the statistical moments of a quantity such as 7, as given by equation (5), or Yg, as given by the real part of equation (6), may be found by the application of Cambell’s Theorem (20]. For both T and Yq this approach leads to the conclusion that the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean value is o/ =1/,/(nm). Furthermore, under the Poisson assumption the detailed distribution of T or Y, can in principle be derived by following the analysis presented by Rice 20]; at high values of the modal overlap factor the distribution will tend to be Gaussian, although a much more complicated result will apply at low values of m, It should be noted, however, that knowledge of the probability density function of 7 or Yq is insufficient to estimate the maximum value achieved by the function over a given frequency interval. For this information an extreme value analysis involving the level crossing rates of the function would be required [20]; given the uncertainty of the initial Poisson assumption, such a detailed analysis is not appropriate. Although the Poisson model has been shown to be of restricted validity [16], it is used here as a basis for developing a semi-empirical modification to the deterministic frequency response envelopes: the analytical simplicity of the model and the lack of a494 R. S. LANGLEY suitable alternative outweigh any reservations regarding rigour. Rather than adopt the Lyon approach to the statistics of the frequency response curves [16], the present analysis is concentrated initially on the effect of irregular frequency spacing on the modal density and the modal overlap factor. This is similar to the approach taken by Bolt and Roop [21] for room acoustics. According to the Poisson model, the mean number of natural frequencies which will occur in a frequency band covering r times the modal bandwidth will be 4 =rony = rm. For a Poisson process the variance of the number of events occurring in a given interval is equal to the mean number of events: the standard deviation of the number of modes occurring in r times the modal bandwidth is thus ¢ = \/(rm), The maximum expected number of modes which will occur within r times the modal bandwidth can be estimated to be + go = rm +q,/(rm), where q is a factor which determines the confidence level. From this point of view, the effect of random natural frequency spacing is to increase the modal density from the nominal value of v toa maximum value of around v[1 + q/a/(rm)], where the parameters r and q remain to be chosen. The maximum value of Yq will occur at the maximum modal density, and thus equation (20) can be modified to read Panac = (Pn 2(m"{m")coth (nm"/2), om" =m'(L+giy/rm’), 31,32) where an allowance for degeneracy has been made by using the effective modal overlap factor given by equation (30). A similar modification can be made to equation (13) to yield the upper envelope of the kinetic energy curve. At high values of modal overlap the coth term which appears in equation (31) will approach unity, and the result for Yana Will be equal to the mean value multiplied by 1+ q/x/(rm’). There is a relationship between this result and the ratio o/j = 1,/(nm) derived by Lyon [16]: were r= and g=3, then (degeneracy effects aside) the present analysis would be equivalent (o setting the maximum expected response to the “3a” level. Conversely, at low values of modal overlap equation (31) yields Yona = m[(m‘conpR), in agreement with the deterministic result for a single mode; the factor m/nt’ which appears in this result makes an average allowance for the effect of repeated natural frequencies. ‘An approximate result for the envelope of the minimum values of ¥, may be obtained by considering initially the case of high modal overlap. By direct analogy with the previous analysis, the minimum expected modal density may be expressed as v[1 — q/,/(rm’J], and this result may be used in equation (21) to yield Yun. Clearly, this approach breaks down at lower values of the modal overlap factor, where the expression for the minimum expected moda} density will become negative. At very low modal overlap, the value of Yen will be dominated by two neighbouring modes: the actual value of Ypyip Will be inversely proportional to the square of the modal separation, da say. Now, under the Poisson model the probability density function of dw is given by (Sa) =v eS 3) where I/v' = I/v(1— I/mn) is the average separation of the distinct modes. This result implies that there is a 90% probability that 5 is less than 2:3/v’, and hence at low modal overlap v/23 is a reasomable estimate of the minimum expected modal density. A reasonable semi-empirical formula for the minimum modal density which encompasses both the low and high modal overlap results is as follows: 1/2:3, mi<@ir VielY = 41+ ne’ = guj’ ir . (4) qt ogram? "FrFREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES 495 The choice of a 90% probability level is rather arbitrary, and the numerical factor 2:3 can be adjusted if other probability levels are required. Equation (21) can now be replaced by the result Penn = (Y>(m"/m’) tanh (ame"/2), mt" = Vin. (35, 36) An analogous modification can be made to equation (15) to yield the lower envelope of the kinetic energy curve. Degeneracy and irregular natural frequency spacing will also affect the envelopes of the imaginary part of the point mobility. The maximum absolute values of Y, will occur when the modal density is a minimum, and thus the appropriate modification to equation (29) is to replace ¥ by Yn and m by m™. Thus far the parameters q and r have not been specified. A number of cases have been considered and it has been found that the vaiues q yield a reasonable estimate of the response envelopes in most situations, The value r = 1 implies that the maximum and minimum modal densities are estimated on the basis of the number of modes which occur within a modal bandwidth wy, while q = 1 corresponds to the Io level. Results obtained by using these values are presented in the following section. It is emphasized at this stage that the present approach does not represent a rigorous statistical analysis of the frequency response envelopes; nor does it allow accurate confidence levels to be established. Such an analysis could in principle be undertaken were the statistical properties of the natural frequencies known; however, it is demonstrated in the literature on room acoustics [12-14, 16] that the statistical nature of the occurrence of natural frequencies depends in a very complex way on the aspect ratio of the component under consideration. The Poisson assumption is convenient but in some cases it can be inaccurate, and such cases are difficult to identify in advance; any sophisticated ailalysis which is based on this assumption would therefore be of dubious validity. The present work leads to simple expressions for the frequency response envelopes, which are intended to yield a rapid estimate of the maximum (or minimum) response based on standard parameters such as the modal density and modal overlap factor. 3.2. FURTHER APPLICATIONS In this section a rectangular plate of planform m,L x n,£ and loss factor 1 = 0-01 is considered. As for the square plate considered in section 2.4, the non-dimensional frequency 2 = wL?\/(p/D) is used, which implies the modal density is @n/@Q = n,m /4n. Results for the real part of the spatially averaged point mobility Y, are presented in Figures 6-9 for various values of n, and 1); in each case a frequency range covering the first 1200 modes is shown, which means that the modal overlap factor m ranges from 0 to 12, Bach figure contains the exact result for Yq together with the analytical envelopes given by equations (31) and (35) for g =r =1. Figure 6 concerns a square plate with ny = m= 1; this is exactly the case shown in Figure 5 for a reduced frequency range. By comparing Figures 5 and 6 it can be seen that equations (31) and (35) give a much improved estimate of the envelopes of the frequency response curve, Similar results are shown in Figure 7 for n, = | and n, = 3, and in Figure 8 for m, = 2 and n, = 3. The main difference between the three cases concerns the accuracy of the lower envelope at low frequencies; in Figures 7 and 8 good agreement with the exact results can be seen, while in Figure 6 the lower envelope falls below the exact results. This kind of variation is to be expected, as the validity of the underlying Poisson model of natural frequency occurrence is known to depend upon aspect ratio [12]. Results for the non-degenerate case n, = 0-995 and nm, = 1/0-995 are shown in Figure 9: in practical terms this plate is496 R. S, LANGLEY log (Fai< Ye >) s 6 7 8 8 W i! 12 13 14 15 axio7 Figure 6. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for @ square plate. nearly identical to the square plate, although in this case no natural frequencies are actually repeated. Theoretically the slight change in dimensions has a noticeable effect—in the vicinity of the highest frequency the fluctuations in the response curve are around £1-24B for the perfectly square plate and +0-7dB for the modified plate. Fabrication tolerances suggest degeneracy effects will be less pronounced in practice than predicted by theory. log (Fale Ya >) 'y 500 1000 Fs00 20002500 3000 8500 4000 4500 5000 a Figure 7. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a plate of aspect ratio 1:3,FREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES: 497 log (Fale Ya >) ° ‘500 1000 1500 2000 2500 2 Figure 8. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a plate of aspect ratio 2:3, Finally, results are presented in Figure 10 for the imaginary part of the point mobility for a square plate. The inner envelope curves represent the deterministic results given-by equation (29), while the outer curves have been evaluated by using the minimum expected modal density, It can be seen that the modified curves give a better estimate of the actual results, although at higher frequencies even these curves are exceeded. The difficulty here is that neighbouring modes may either add to or subtract from the result for a particular mode, which makes the imaginary part of the point mobility particularly log (Fale Ye >) o 12 8 4 6 6 7 8 9 10 MW 18 l¢ ie 2x10 Figure 9. The real part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a square plate of aspect ratio 0995: 1/0:995.498 R. S. LANGLEY. tt oo Yale Ye > 60 4 ‘050 100 150 200 280 00 50 400 450 600 550 600 2 Figure 10, The imaginary part of the spatially averaged point mobility for a square plate 80, sensitive to irregular natural frequency spacing. Fortunately, this quantity does not have the physical significance of either the kinetic energy density or the real part of the point mobility. 4, CONCLUSIONS Frequency response envelopes have been derived for the spatially averaged point mobility and kinetic energy density of one- and two-dimensional structural components; rods, beams and plates have been given detailed attention. The main points which have arisen from this work are as follows. (1) In the absence of random natural frequency spacing effects, the envelopes of the spatially averaged kinetic energy density are given by equations (13) and (13), while those of the real part of the spatially averaged point mobility are given by equations (20) and (21). The coth (wm/2) and tanh (wm/2) factors which appear in these results have previously been justified on empirical grounds [11]. The present work has shown that these results may in fact be derived analytically by both modal and wave methods, Envelopes for the imaginary part of the spatially averaged point mobility have also been derived, and these are given by equation (29). Each of these results is generally limited to one-dimensional components, in which the natural frequency spacing tends to be fairly regular. (2) For a two-dimensional component, irregular natural frequency spacing and degen- eracy can have a significant effect on the frequency response envelopes. In such cases equations (31) and (35) yield a good estimate of the real part of the spatially averaged point mobility, and directly analogous results apply to the kinetic energy density. If required, equation (29) may be modified by use of the minimum expected modal density, equation (34), to yield a revised estimate of the envelopes of the imaginary part of the spatially averaged point mobility. Although the present results have been derived with high frequency vibrations in mind, the analysis is valid down to the lowest mode of vibrationFREQUENCY RESPONSE ENVELOPES 499 of the structure. In the present work the derived results have been validated by application to rectangular structural elements. The results can also be expected to apply to non- rectangular components, provided that the element shape does not have a dramatic effect ‘on the statistics of the occurrence of the natural frequencies; such an effect would not be anticipated for standard components such as skew or triangular plates. (3) A number of approximate methods of vibration analysis, such as Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) ot Skudrzyk's mean-value method, yield response estimates which are spatially averaged, frequency averaged, or both. In SEA both averaging processes are employed, and the present work provides a simple scaling factor which may be applied to the resulting vibration energy levels to give an estimate of the maximum response (as a function of frequency). It follows from equation (31) that the appropriate scaling factor is S= (+ q/frm’) coth {xml + gi,/rm’)/2}, (37) where m’ is the modal overlap factor, incorporating any degeneracy effects, For one-di- mensional components, where the natural frequency spacing is fairly regular, the value 4 = 0 is recommended, For two-dimensional components, the values g =r = | have been found to show good agreement with exact results. For low modal overlap this scaling factor approximates to f = 2/(nm'), which coincides with the scaling factor previously suggested by Heron [10]. (4) Although the concern here has been with a single structural component, there is reason to believe that the present results are also applicable to built-up structures. It was shown in section 2.2 that the scaling factor coth (xm/2) may be derived from wave arguments; from this point of view the factor represents the ratio of the energy level arising in a fully correlated wave field to that obtained in an uncorrelated wave field. In the wave approach to SEA, it is assumed that the waves produced by successive reflections from structural boundaries are uncorrelated (see, for example, reference [22]; the present scaling factor gives an estimate of the maximum possible error arising from this assumption. In fact, the scaling factor has already been applied in reference [11] to a built-up structure rather than a single component with some success. Further work is needed to assess whether the scaling factor can be applied independently to each structural component, or whether an effective scaling factor for the whole built-up structure should be used: a closely related research issue concerns the role and significance of the modal overlap factor of individual structural components [23]. (5) It is often argued that averaging the response of a structure over frequency has a very similar effect to averaging over an ensemble of structures which have random properties. By this argument the “average” response yielded by SEA may be viewed as either a frequency or an ensemble average. Were the response statistics “ergodic”, then the sealing factor given by equation (37) would also yield an estimate of the maximum response achieved across the ensemble at a given frequency. 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