Signal response of elastically coated plates

An analytical model of a compliant elastic coating attached to a submerged thin plate has been developed. A plane acoustic wave, representing the signal; is incident from the water on to the elastic coating. The normal and tangential velocity components induced in the coating by the acoustic wave are calculated. The effects of incidence angle, frequency, location throughout the coating, and coating properties on the signal response velocity components are evaluated. Many details of the coating velocity components are explained based on simple uncoupled waveguide characteristics of the coating. In general, the normal velocity components are several tens of decibels higher in amplitude than the tangential velocity components. It was shown, however, that the tangential velocity component could be increased by an average amount of about 20 dB, without serious degradation of the normal component, by altering the coating properties. In particular, combinations of high longitudinal wave speed and low shear wave speed were found to be advantageous. (C) 1998 Acoustical Society of America.