Free Field Radiation of a Dipole

Actran Student Edition Tutorial

November 3, 2017

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 Introduction
• Pre-requisites - before going through this presentation, the reader should
have read and understood the following presentation:
– Workshop: Monopole radiation in free field

• This workshop introduces the concept of acoustic dipole and its radiation
into free field. The radiated acoustic field is calculated in Actran and
compared to analytical solution

• The objectives of this workshop are the following :

– Get introduced to the notion of acoustic dipole
– Get introduced to the notion of acoustic directivity

• Software Version:
– Actran 18 Student Edition

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 Workshop Description
• A dipole source consists of two monopole Infinite elements surface
sources of equal strength but opposite
phase and separated by a small distance Acoustic finite fluid
compared to the wavelength of sound

• An acoustic dipole source radiates

 Two spherical source boundary conditions
are defined
• The surrounding medium is a non-moving
homogeneous acoustic fluid (air)
 A finite fluid component is defined
• A free field condition is specified
 An infinite fluid component is also defined Two spherical acoustic sources
Separated by a small distance
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 Analytical solution
• Let us consider two spherical sources of equal amplitude A, but opposite
phase and positioned at points Q1(-d/2,0,0) and Q2(d/2,0,0). The incident
sound field induced by these two sources at point P is
r1 the distance between P and Q1
with r2 the distance between P and Q2
the wave number

• Introducing r the distance between P and Q located in the middle of the

two sources, and assuming that the distance d between the sources is
small compared with the wavelength of sound, the incident sound field
becomes

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 Link to textbook
• Dipoles and quadrupoles
– Section 11.1 page 240

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 Workshop Pre-Processing
Direct Frequency Response

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 Start ActranVI
• Start ActranVI:
– shortcut is available through the Windows Start Menu

(Windows Start Menu)

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 Set the Working Directory

• The working directory is the default

directory where all the files are output

• Click on :
– File  Set Working Directory…

• Select the workshop directory as the

working directory

Important: The working directory path

should not contain any space or special
character

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 Import the Mesh

• Import the provided dipole_free_field.bdf

mesh file into ActranVI:
File  Import mesh…  BDF

• A topology is created and the different

element sets are displayed *
• The mesh uses quadratic elements
interpolation **

* When importing BDF format mesh, one element set is created for each PID

** Quadratic mesh is used as its high order interpolation captures better monopole sources

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 Create the Domains
• A domain is a group of one or several element
sets. Domain is used to link the element sets to
the components in the analysis

• Auto create the domains of the imported mesh

(right click):
 TOPOLOGY  Auto create domains

• Auto-creation of one domain per element set:

– A default name (PID name defined in the *.bdf file
followed by the PID number) is assigned to each
domain
– The All domain contains all element sets

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 Create the Domains (2)
• Two domains have been created:
– The fluid: 3D tetrahedral elements
– The infinite domain : 2D triangular elements
• Rename the domains of the imported
mesh with appropriate names. For each
domain:
a) Right click on the domain  Properties… a
b) Edit the name according to the table below

Default name New name b

pshell7_7 Infinite_surface
psolid1_1 Acoustic_fluid

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 Create the Direct Frequency Response
• Create a Direct Frequency Response
analysis by right-clicking on “Analysis”

• The analysis properties window pops up. It is the window from which the
different parts of the analysis are defined

Component Boundary Condition Post-Processing Solver

Frequency Range
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 Specify the Frequency Range
• The frequency range of computation is specified through the properties of the
analysis

• The maximum frequency is driven by the smallest wave length :

– For quadratic elements, a rule of thumb is to
c min
use 4 quadratic elements per wavelength to f max  with Lmax   160 mm
min 4
capture the acoustic fluctuation
340
– The largest element length in the mesh is 160 mm gives f max   531Hz
4  0.16
• This analysis is performed from 10Hz up to 500 Hz with a step of 10 Hz
– Specify the minimum frequency, the step and the maximum frequency

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 Create the finite Fluid Component
1 – Add a Component

• Add a Finite Fluid component

• Component properties:
– Specify the name of the Finite Fluid component: Acoustic
– Create a new Fluid material

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 Create the finite Fluid Component
2 – Set up the Fluid Material

• Name: Air
• Standard properties of air:
Remark: These values are default
– Speed of sound: 340 m/s
values if they are not specified
– Density: 1.255 kg/m3

• Close the material properties window

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 Create the finite Fluid Component
3 – Assign the Domain

• With the Scope selector, assign the Acoustic_fluid domain to the Acoustic
component

• Close the component properties window

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 Create the Infinite Fluid Component
• Add an Infinite Fluid component
• Component properties:

Property Value
Name infinite_acoustic
Material Air 1
Interpolation Order 5
Center [0,0,0]
Axes [1,0,0],[0,1,0],[0,0,1]
Power Evaluation 1:Compute Radiated Power

•
Domain Infinite_surface

• Close the properties window

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 Create spherical acoustic sources
• Add a Source (spherical) boundary condition
• Specify the parameters of the source:
– Name: monopole1
– Origin: [-0.001,0,0]
– Amplitude: -1*
– Type of Amplitude: P
– Activate “Visualization in viewports”

* Amplitude specifies “A” in the equation

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 Create spherical acoustic sources
• Add a second Source (spherical) boundary
condition
• Specify the parameters of the source:
– Name: monopole2
– Origin: [0.001,0,0]
– Amplitude: 1
– Type of Amplitude: P
– Activate “Visualization in viewports”

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 Specify the Solver

• Define the solver of the analysis

• Set the MUMPS solver

• Close the pop-up window of

MUMPS

• Close the properties window of the Direct Frequency Response

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 Set the Post-processing Parameters
1 – Create field points FRF output

• Create field points. Field points are points where the fluid pressure is
output. These field points can be seen as virtual microphones:
a) In the Toolbox, go to the Mesh tab, then to Meshing tools, and click on Points
b) Select custom and set the Coordinates of the points: [1,0,0],[2,0,0],[3,0,0]
c) Thanks to the Interactive Preview, the points can be made visible in the viewport
d) Select New topology and field point (FRF)
e) Click on Create PIDs to create the field points in a new topology

The field points are created

next to the infinite elements
sphere
Field points

• Close the properties window

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 Set the Post-processing Parameters
2 – Set the output filename

• An Output FRF was created in the data tree

panel, containing the Field Point
• Right click on Output FRF in the data tree panel
and go to Properties for Output FRF…
• Set the Output filename to field_point_results.plt
– This PLT file will be created at the end of the
computation

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 Set the Post-processing Parameters
3 – Create a field map output

• Create a structured mesh to

support the field map results. A
field map is a mesh on which
calculation results are output:
a) In the Toolbox, go to the Mesh tab,
then to Meshing tools, and click on
Structured mesh
b) Set the coordinates of the
structured mesh according to
the figure on the right*
c) Select New topology
d) Click on Create PIDs
* The created field mesh fills the area indicated by the X,Y, Z
coordinates, with indicated number of elements on each axis. In this
model, the field mesh is a surface mesh on the X-Y plane. The
created elements have linear interpolation. The field mesh density
should also be sufficient to observe the wave propagation (minimum
8 elements per wavelength at 500Hz) Field mesh supporting
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map results
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 Set the Post-processing Parameters
4 – Create a field map output

• Right click on PostProcessing in the

data tree panel and go to Add Field
Map

• Set the Output Format to NFF

• Set the Output filename to
result_map.nff
– This NFF file will be created at the end of
the computation
• Set the step to 1
– This parameter indicates that the map is
output every 1 simulation step
• With the Scope selector, assign the
All_3 domain to the Field Map
• Close the properties window
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 Set the Post-processing Parameters
5 – Create an array of microphone for directivity plot

• Directivity plots allow to observe the directivity of a pressure field. To plot

this kind of figure, a circular array of virtual microphones must be created
• Create the circular array of microphone:
a) In the Toolbox, go to the Mesh tab, then to Meshing tools,
and click on Points
b) Select polar and set the parameters for the field points
c) Select New topology and field point (FRF)
d) Click on Create PIDs

Field points

• Close the properties window

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 Check the Analysis

• The analysis is now completely defined

• All the parts of the analysis are available and
editable on the data tree panel
• Check if the analysis
tree is identical to the
one shown

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 Export the Analysis File

• The analysis can be exported in the

EDAT Actran input file
• Right click on the Direct Frequency
Response, and choose
Export analysis (EDAT format)
• As the BDF mesh was imported from an external file, the analysis may be
exported in three different formats:
– The FILE format: the mesh is not explicitly written in the EDAT file, but is referred by its relative path to
the exported analysis file
– The ACTRAN format: the mesh is explicitly written in the EDAT file
– The NFF format: the mesh is rewritten in a separate NFF format, the EDAT file refers to the NFF format

• Export the analysis choosing the FILE format and name the file
“input_dipole.edat”

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 Launch Actran Analysis
• Launch the computation:
– Open the FFT Launcher by right clicking on
the input_dipole.edat input file and selecting
Launch with ACTRAN [Student Edition]
– Specify the allocated memory (in MB): type 500 in Memory box
– Click on the green arrow to run the computation

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 • The computation log progresses as the model runs

• “End of computational job” indicates the computation has finished

• Close the Launcher window

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 Post-processing
Plot the pressure with PLTViewer
Visualize Field Map in ActranVI

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 Plot the pressure with PLTViewer
1 – Open PLTViewer and import field point results

• PLTViewer is the dedicated post-processing utility to visualize FRF's from

Actran (stored in the PLT file) or from measurements

• Open the PLTViewer interface

– PLTViewer can be launched within ActranVI
from the Utilities menu

• Import the file field_point_results.plt

– Under File select Open PLT file
– Select the file field_point_results.plt

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 Plot the pressure with PLTViewer
2 – Plot the real part of the pressure a

• For each field point on POINT_1, use the

shortcut to plot the REAL part of the pressure b
a) Unfold the point tree
c
(“1 [coordinates = [1, 0.0, 0.0]]” for point 1)
b) Right Click on Fluid_P [fp]
c) Select Plot real
• The real part of the pressure is plotted for each point

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 Comparison with Analytical Solution
• The Real Part of the pressure at the field points location is a sum of two
cosine with different amplitude and period

• This result can be found with the analytical solution

• For the field point located 1m away from the origin, the analytical solution
gives

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 Comparison with Analytical Solution

• In the file “Analytical_solution.txt”, the analytical solution is available for

the point located 1 meter away from the source

• In PLTViewer, import this text file through menu

File  Open Text file  choose “analytical_solution.txt”

• Plot the analytical curve (see next page)

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 a) Click “Add” to create a new Function
b) Drag & Drop the two fields in the analytical solution into X an Y Data vectors
c) Click “Plot/Update”
d) Change curve properties to show the analytical curve using dots

b Drag & Drop

a c d

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 Create the directivity plot at 400Hz

• The directivity plot is a convenient way to observe the radiation of an

acoustic source
• A directivity plot is obtained by surrounding an acoustic source with
microphones and plotting the measured sound pressure level in a
polar plot

• Create a new figure

• Add a reverse set*
– Right click on PltSet1 [field_point_results.plt]
– Add reverse set

* In result sets output from the calculation, information is stored for each point
In reverse result sets, information is stored for each frequency

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 • Create the directivity plot at 400Hz
a) Unfold the reversed PltSet
b) Unfold Point_2
c) Unfold 400.0
h
d) Click on Add to create a new function
e) Select dB_pressure (ref=2e-05) in the Y Data Vector h
f) Click on Replace
g) Modify the X Vector according to the picture*
h) Drag & Drop the two fields in the analytical solution
into X an Y Data vectors
i) Click Plot/Update g
j) On Figure properties (panel on the right) select f e
Polar to visualize the directivity plot

j i d
* The X vector is the point iD. In order to make each point iD corresponds to its
angle, a linear function has to be applied.
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 Directivity plot at 400Hz
Directivity plot of the sound pressure
level in dB 2m away from the dipole
• The directivity of a dipole is not
constant, unlike the directivity of a
monopole

• One of the main characteristic of a

dipole is the absence of noise on its
symmetry plane (θ=π/2)
• The maximum pressure level is located
on the line passing through the two
monopoles

Dipole
orientation

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 Visualize Field Map in ActranVI
• Switch back to tab ActranVI:
• Import the map exported during the computation
(result_map.nff) Click on :
– File  Import Mesh…  NFF
• Import the pressure results on the field mesh
a) Open tab: Import Results
b) Select TOPOLOGY_result_map_nff
c) Choose Fluid_P (fp) for acoustic pressure
d) Import Selected
Results a

c
b

d
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 Visualize Field Map in ActranVI
• From the Display results tab of the Toolbox, visualize the pressure map in
dB at 10Hz

• The map can be visualized on the [X-Y] plan

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 Visualize Field Map in ActranVI
• In the Properties tab,
manually adjust the range of
the color map
• The sound pressure level
distribution is coherent with the
previously observed directivity
plot

Frequency 10Hz

Sound pressure map at 400Hz Sound pressure map at 400Hz

Field points used for the directivity plot are The directivity plot has been superposed
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displayed
 • Visualize the real part of pressure
a) Change the operator to “Real
Part” and then Apply
b) Switch to Properties tab
a
c) Manually set custom range for
the color bar a
(press Enter after typing the value in Max color)
d) Switch to Animation tab
e) Visualize the animation by clicking on Play

c
c

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 Going Further : Plot Time Domain Results
• The evolution of the pressure versus time at one point P located on the
line passing through the two monopoles can be calculated
with p the complex value of the pressure at point P
r1 the distance between P and Q1
r2 the distance between P and Q2
the wave number

The time domain results at 400Hz are available in the file time_plot.txt
• First file column: time list
• Second column: solution at 1m from the dipole
• Third column: solution at 2m from the dipole
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 • Import the time_plot.txt file in PLTViewer and plot the two results
• The amplitude of pressure oscillations created by the dipole decreases
as the distance to the dipole increases
• The phase of the pressure oscillations also changes with the distance
to the dipole

Evolution of the pressure generated by a dipole pulsing at 400Hz versus time

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