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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4421-6751

Date Available

4-28-2026

Year of Publication

2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Engineering

Department/School/Program

Mechanical Engineering

Faculty

David W. Herrin

Abstract

Reciprocity implies that a system responds identically when the source and receiver positions are interchanged. This dissertation applies this principle to address three practical challenges in noise and vibration characterization, where conventional approaches are limited by inaccessible interfaces, constrained excitation conditions, or metrics that do not fully capture vibroacoustic behavior.

The first study develops and validates an inverse method to characterize ducted acoustic sources using acoustic free velocity. Acoustic reciprocity is applied to simplify transfer function measurements. The method is extended to large cross-section ducts, where the source is reconstructed as a collection of point sources along a plane. Validation demonstrates that the reconstructed sources can be used in simulation studies to predict the impact of acoustic treatments or geometry changes.

The second study addresses spring isolator characterization, where conventional measurements are typically limited in frequency range and direction. Mechanical reciprocity, combined with virtual point transformation and substructuring techniques, enables broadband characterization of transfer dynamic stiffness in all six degrees of freedom. Static preload is incorporated to capture isolator behavior under realistic operating conditions.

The third study investigates structural damping treatments, which are commonly quantified using composite damping loss factor, a metric that does not directly account for the sound radiated by the structure. Vibroacoustic reciprocity is applied to obtain sound power transfer functions, which are combined with mobility measurements to estimate acoustic radiation efficiency. The results demonstrate that reductions in vibration do not necessarily correspond to equivalent reductions in sound radiation, providing a more complete assessment of damping performance.

Overall, these studies demonstrate that reciprocity-based transfer function techniques provide a practical framework for characterizing acoustic sources, spring isolators, and structural damping treatments, overcoming the inherent limitations of conventional measurement approaches.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2026.149

Archival?

Archival

Funding Information

This dissertation was supported by the Vibro-Acoustics Consortium at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (University of Kentucky)

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