Vibroacoustic modeling study of the Delta II 10-foot composite fairing

The Boundary Element Method (BEM) has seen increasing use in the space indu stry to predict vibroacoustic responses of spacecraft and launch vehicle st ructures. The BEM application is used in the law-frequency regime where Sta tistical Energy Analysis (SEA) is usually inapplicable. This paper document s a vibroacoustic study of the Delta II IO-ft composite fairing using BEM a nd SEA. The fairing vibration and internal acoustic levels are predicted Th e BEM and SEA predictions are compared with data from the Delta II 10-ft co mposite fairing acoustic test. The relative accuracy of the BEM and SEA met hods in various frequency ranges is discussed. In addition, computer system requirements and lessons learned fp om BEM and SEA modeling are presented.