228 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 8, NO.
2, MARCH 2000
Robust Feedback Control of Flow-Induced Structural
Radiation of Sound
Craig M. Heatwole, Matthew A. Franchek, Member, IEEE, and Robert J. Bernhard
Abstract—Presented in this paper is the robust multivariable
control of noise radiation from panels driven by turbulent flow. The
controlled inputs are point forces to the panel and the feedback sig-
nals are panel accelerations. Collocated actuator/sensor locations
on the panel are chosen such that vibration control will lead to a
reduction in the radiated sound pressure levels. The multivariable
controller is realized though a sequential loop closure approach.
Each controller is designed in the frequency domain where the im-
pact of system uncertainty and closed-loop sensitivity can be an-
alyzed. The proposed frequency domain approach will also facili-
tate the design of feedback controllers that employ the natural dy-
namics of the panel for noise control purposes. The proposed de-
sign technique is experimentally validated on a panel subjected to
turbulent flow in a quiet wind tunnel. Active control of the sound
radiation was achieved at frequencies as high as 1000 Hz. Sound
pressure level reductions of as much as 15 dB were achieved at the
resonant frequencies of the panel modes. Overall reductions over
the 100–1000 Hz band were approximately 5 dB.
Index Terms—Acoustic application, multivariable robust con-
trol, noise radiation.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE structural radiation of sound resulting from turbulent
boundary layer excitation is a major consideration in a va-
riety of engineering applications. Although passive techniques
can be used to reduce noise radiation, many applications require
active control. A successful active control solution can be used,
for example, to reduce aeroacoustical noise in automobiles, to
significantly improve sonar performance, or to reduce interior
noise in aircraft.
Adaptive feedforward control schemes have been utilized in
the past for many active noise control applications. To be suc-
cessful, these methods require either a deterministic excitation
or a reference transducer signal which provides causal and co-
herent random disturbance information. Unfortunately, turbu-
lent boundary layer excitation is broadband and both spatially
and temporally random. Therefore a coherent reference trans-
ducer signal is not available.
As an alternative, feedback-based active noise control could
be applied to the noise radiation problem. In [1] a model of the
turbulent flow excitation is developed and utilized in a linear
quadratic regulator (LQR) feedback control strategy. However,
the authors recognized that LQR control may not be practical
since these controllers require full state information. It is un-
likely that the state information associated with the turbulent
Manuscript received June 9, 1997; revised August 2, 1999. Recommended by
Associate Editor, S. Farinwata.
The authors are with the School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue Univer-
sity, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1077 USA (e-mail: franchek@ecn.purdue.edu).
Publisher Item Identifier S 1063-6536(00)01411-1.
1063–6536/00$10.00 © 2000 IEEE
boundary layer could be obtained through measurements or an-
alytical techniques.
Robust control is another feedback-based control approach.
Relatively few studies have utilized robust feedback control for
acoustic problems. Most of these robust control investigations
employ sound pressure level feedback. As a result, the feed-
back signal contains a time delay owing to the propagation of
sound from the structure to the microphone locations. For the
case where the delay of the open-loop dynamics has a negligible
phase lag up to the open-loop cross over frequency, [2], [3] suc-
cessfully applied an control solution with sound pressure
level feedback to reduce sound inside a small reverberant enclo-
sure. When the system delay becomes significant, [4] has shown
that vibration feedback can be used to suppress acoustic energy.
A similar method is used in this study.
To develop a feasible solution to the flow noise control
problem, a sequential robust feedback control method is
proposed. Using this approach, each diagonal controller of
a multivariable system is designed such that the closed-loop
system is stable for all operating conditions while achieving
sound pressure level reductions through vibration control.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Turbulent flow over a panel produces a broadband excitation
of the structural modes. Those structural modes couple with the
acoustic space to radiate noise. For the class of systems consid-
ered in this investigation, a panel separates the turbulent flow
from the acoustic space. The objective is to control the dynamic
behavior (vibration) of the plate to reduce the radiated noise. For
this particular problem, the controlled inputs are voltages sent
to point force actuators attached to the plate and the sensed out-
puts are panel accelerations.
To develop the problem statement, let the Laplace transform
of the panel acceleration be represented as
(1)
and the Laplace transform of the radiated noise from the panel
be
(2)
where is a vector of measured panel accel-
erations, is a vector of point forces (the con-
trolled input), is a vector of sound pressure
levels (SPL’s) (the controlled output), and is
a nonpredictable broadband disturbance representing turbulent
flow. Let the transfer function matrices ,
and be of appropriate dimension and have no hidden
HEATWOLE et al.: ROBUST FEEDBACK CONTROL OF FLOW-INDUCED STRUCTURAL RADIATION OF SOUND
unstable modes. Each element of these matrices is assumed to
be , and has the form
The parameter denotes a vector of compact parametric
uncertain parameters. Here will be used to represent the
changes in the dynamic response of the structure due to the
loading effects from the dynamic pressure of the flow at various
operating conditions.
The design goal is to reduce the SPL at each microphone lo-
cation at prespecified frequencies using a
diagonal multivariable controller comprised of elements.
Typically, the largest sound pressure levels occur at panel reso-
nances which dominate the vibration response. However, not all
plate resonant modes radiate sound. Therefore it is necessary to
control only those panel modes that efficiently radiate sound.
Given the system description in (1) and (2), a closed-loop
sensitivity based multivariable controller design could be per-
formed using or µ-synthesis. However, the descriptions of
(1) and (2) are somewhat misleading. First, the characterization
of , the turbulent flow, is very difficult if not impossible to
capture. In fact, characterizing turbulent flow is currently a fun-
damental area of research. Without knowing , determining
the elements of through either experimentation or first
principle-based modeling is impossible. Obtaining the elements
of is also difficult. First principle models are avail-
able for predicting the vibration of lightly damped structures
subjected to point forces and distributed random loads. How-
ever the uncertainty of the plate dynamics for practical applica-
tions makes the model development of the plate modes difficult.
Hence, an automated system identification approach integrated
with a multivariable controller design process will be developed
for this class of acoustical-mechanical-electrical systems.
In lieu of these difficulties, the proposed method of solution is
primarily systems level based. In particular, frequency response
functions (FRF’s) between the controlled inputs (voltages sent
to point force actuators) and sensed outputs (panel accelera-
tions) are experimentally measured. Several FRF’s of the plate
vibrations for various turbulent flow conditions are obtained to
produce a family of FRF’s. Although dynamic models could
be developed for the structure from the FRF’s, a multivariable
controller design process is developed that directly utilizes the
measured FRF’s. The details of the controller design process are
presented herein.
III. MAIN RESULTS
Presented in this section is the proposed active noise con-
troller design methodology. First, the sequential controller de-
sign process is presented. From this development, the remaining
issues associated with the active control of noise are presented.
A. Sequential Controller Design Development
The proposed controller design process for the multi-
variable system will be based on a sequential loop closure
approach. Each diagonal controller is designed based on the
desired closed-loop performance which in this case includes
229
robust stability and sensitivity reduction. The selection of a
single-input-single-output (SISO) approach to design the diag-
onal multivariable controller is primarily based on the nature of
the control problem. In particular, sequential controller design
transparently displays the loop interaction at a local level. In
addition, sequential loop closure has the ability to directly
employ experimental data in designing the controller thereby
avoiding the model development phase completely. Finally,
controller design is executed using classical SISO controller
loop shaping design tools.
1) Recursive Formulation: The proposed control law
is based on accelerometer feedback where
. The controller matrix is
limited to diagonal elements that are . In the interest of
brevity, the uncertainty vector is implicit in the remainder of
the paper except in those cases that require additional clarity.
The corresponding closed-loop transfer function for (1) is
(3)
From (2), it can be seen that reducing the vibration of those
modes radiating noise in (3) will reduce the SPL at the micro-
phone locations.
Without loss in generality, loop closure will proceed in as-
cending order. However, this sequence is only intended to facil-
itate the following development. From (3)
(4)
where and denotes the inverse
of a matrix. It is assumed that the vibration control problem is
well posed in that exists and has no unstable
Smith–McMillan pole-zero cancellations. Expanding the first
row of (4) and closing the first loop gives
(5)
where
are the so-called normalized, uncertain plant and the nom-
inal open-loop transfer function respectively. Notice that the
numerator of (5) is comprised of two distinct parts. The first
part, , is the dynamics representing the various
disturbance paths. The second part corresponds to loop interac-
tions which appear as an external disturbance to the first loop
[5]. The design of is based on robust closed-loop
performance (sensitivity reduction) and robust closed-loop
stability, and is given in the next section.
Using Gauss elimination to incorporate the controllers from
previously closed loops, [5] developed the general recursive re-
lationships
(6)
230 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 8, NO. 2, MARCH 2000
where
(7)
(8)
and
where is the number of loops closed and
Using the Gauss elimination approach for all loops essentially
transforms into an upper triangular ma-
trix.
2) Robust Stability: Robust stability is a precursor to robust
performance. In fact, robust performance indirectly specifies the
degree of closed-loop stability. To enforce robust closed-loop
stability, the Nyquist encirclement condition will be imposed on
the design of each individual loop. In addition to the assump-
tions stated in Section II, the class of considered is
limited to systems where exists , and its
elements are stable.
For this limited class of systems, closed-loop stability
can be guaranteed by guaranteeing the stability of each
[5]. The stability is found from
(9)
where is defined in (7) and is defined in
(8). It is assumed that no unstable pole/zero cancellation oc-
curs when forming . Equation (9) gives the
classical SISO stability problem which can be solved using the
Nyquist encirclement condition. Therefore, if each loop design
is stable then the closed-loop system is stable for the class of
multivariable systems considered.
3) Robust Performance: Active noise control can be classi-
fied as a regulator controller design problem. Hence, sensitivity
reduction will emerge as the robust performance objective. To
develop the design goal, consider (6). The basic form, regard-
less of the loop closure number, is
where . To reduce
the transmission of to involves reducing
. The difference between the standard robust sen-
sitivity reduction problem and the robust sensitivity reduction
needed in active noise control is that reduction only needs to
occur at discrete frequency bands.
B. Remaining Issues
With the sequential controller design formulation given, three
primary issues remain. In this manuscript it is assumed that de-
tailed analytical models do not exist. Hence each of these items
will be addressed with a solution that is experimentally driven.
Without a loss in generality, the proposed solutions can be ap-
plied to the physical system or to an analytical model of the
system.
1) Identifying frequencies requiring attenuation: Stan-
dard Fourier transform methods such as the discrete Fourier
transform (DFT) can be used to identify those dominant
noise frequencies contained in the radiated noise signal. The
identification process directly follows. First, the structure is
subjected to the various anticipated flow conditions. Noise
measurements at a variety of locations are made within the
enclosure. The main idea is that global SPL reductions within
the enclosure are achieved as opposed to point SPL reductions.
. Obtaining the SPL measurements at different locations within
the enclosure and for different turbulent flow conditions reveal
those frequencies associated with globally radiated noise.
2) Transforming the noise control problem to a vibration
control problem: Essentially, this step is similar to identifying
the appropriate actuator/sensor locations on the panel. Fuller
et al.established that vibration control does not necessarily
correspond to noise control [4]. In fact, vibration control may
indeed spill vibrational energy from structural modes that do
not couple to the acoustic space to structural modes which do
radiate noise. Consequently the SPL will be increased within
the acoustic space. Hence, the actuator/sensor placement on
the plate should be at locations that couple to those vibration
modes whose frequencies correspond to frequencies where
noise reductions are desired. These locations can be identified
via experimental testing (such as on complicated structures)
or by understanding the fundamental dynamics of the struc-
ture and acoustic space as demonstrated in the experimental
verification section of this paper.
If such an actuator/sensor pair placement criterion is applied,
then the resulting control system has inputs with a reasonable
degree of controllability. In addition, this placement ensures that
the vibration signature correlates with the dominant noise signa-
ture inside the enclosure. An analytical justification of placing
actuator/sensor pairs at these locations to ensure that the noise
control problem is well posed has not been developed. How-
ever, testing this hypothesis on a case-by-case basis has shown
that the condition requiring to exist achieves SPL re-
ductions.
3) Obtaining the frequency response functions needed to per-
form the controller design: This phase of the design can be ex-
ecuted using a multiinput-multioutput (MIMO) linear system
identification method [6]. This is a standard formulation which
extracts the frequency response functions for multivariable sys-
tems.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
An experimental facility was constructed to demonstrate
the proposed active noise control technique. The experimental
apparatus consisted of a rectangular panel which was flush
HEATWOLE et al.: ROBUST FEEDBACK CONTROL OF FLOW-INDUCED STRUCTURAL RADIATION OF SOUND 231

mounted in the floor of a quiet flow wind tunnel facility

test section. Sound from the panel radiated into an anechoic
environment below the panel. The sound pressure levels at the
first, second, fourth, and eighth panel resonances (958, 1964,
3542, 5655 rad/s, respectively) are to be reduced for a flow
speed of 35.8 m/s (80 mi/h). The controller is also designed
so that the closed-loop system is stable for flow speeds from
0–51.4 m/s (115 mi/h).
Although SPL is to be controlled, the SPL is not used as a
feedback signal owing to the propagation delay, which in turn
limits the closed-loop performance. This is a direct result of
the excessive phase lag associated with the delay of the sound
propagation between the panel and the sensor location [7]. An
MIMO control structure is selected as two point force control
actuators and two accelerometers. Hence the number of actu-
ator/sensor pairs is not necessarily contingent upon the number Fig. 1. Test setup configuration.
of frequencies to be controlled.
pressure levels and acceleration levels are also measured for use
A. Description of Experimental Facility in the controller evaluation.
The panel is a rectangular 46 33 0.48 cm (18 in 13 in
3/16 in) 6061 aluminum plate. The plate support structure uti- D. Closing the First Loop
lized in this work is approximately simply supported and did not The design goal is to shape the open-loop transfer function
interfere with the turbulent boundary layer. The plate support of (8) such that for the frequencies where sensitivity
structure is attached to an anechoic wooden box (Fig. 1). The reduction is needed, lies outside the 0 dB sensitivity
box provided an acoustically isolated environment in which to contour. For the first loop, the two frequencies requiring sensi-
receive the sound radiated from the panel. The wooden box was tivity reductions are 958 rad/s (first resonance) and 3542 rad/s
constructed using sand filled double plywood walls lined with (fourth resonance).
acoustic wedges. Microphones were placed inside the box to Based on the measured FRF’s used to calculate
evaluate closed-loop performance. Mic 1 was located at , the design begins with two pairs of
cm, , and . Mic 2 was located at nonminimum phase complex zeros at rad/s, ,
cm, , and . a pair of complex poles at rad/s, , and a
pair of complex poles at rad/s, . In this
B. Placement of the Actuator/Sensor Pairs way the first and fourth resonance are separated in phase
The locations of the actuators/sensors are selected such by approximately 360 to meet the Nyquist encirclement
that the plant dynamics have high gain in the frequency condition. A lead compensator consisting of a pair of complex
regions where low sensitivity is required. In this way, the plant poles at rad/s, and a pair of complex zeros
dynamics will provide behavior useful for achieving the perfor- at rad/s, are used to add phase lead so that
mance goals. It is the intent of this controller design approach the first natural frequency ( rad/s) is centered between
to utilize the beneficial plant dynamics such that the controller the 0 dB sensitivity contours. The lightly damped poles add
gain and order can be reduced. The first sensor/actuator pair gain to decrease sensitivity. A pair of complex poles is added
is located in the center of the plate. At this location the sensor at rad/s with . These poles add phase lag to
and actuator couple with the odd–odd modes of the plate which appropriately place the fourth mode ( rad/s) between
are the most efficient radiators of sound [8]. The second pair the 0-dB sensitivity contours. These poles also roll-off the
is located at where and are the longitudinal and open-loop amplitude so that closed-loop stability is achieved.
lateral length of the panel, respectively, to control the remaining A lead compensator is then used to add gain near the fourth
frequencies. resonance ( rad/s). The complex poles are
rad/s, and the complex zeros are at rad/s,
C. Identification of the FRFs . The resulting controller is found in (10) at the bottom
Using the experimental facility, the system FRF’s are mea- of the next page. The controller is tenth order with a dc gain
sured for various operating conditions. Broadband noise is used of 1.2 dB. The open-loop transfer function for the first loop is
as inputs to the shakers. The measured outputs are accelerometer given in Fig. 2.
signals from which the FRF’s for can be calculated.
A family of FRF’s associated with different flow speeds are ob- E. Closing the Second Loop
tained for speeds of 0, 35.8, 40.2, 44.8, and 51.5 m/s (0, 80, 90, A similar approach was taken for the design of the second
100, and 115 mi/h). The magnitude variations of the measured loop using . However, in this design the frequencies
FRF’s are as much as 6 dB and the phases varied by as much as of interest are 1964 rad/s (second resonance), and 5655 rad/s
27 over the frequency range measured. The uncontrolled sound (eighth resonance). The frequencies at 958 rad/s and 3542 rad/s
232 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 8, NO. 2, MARCH 2000

Fig. 2. Sensitivity chart for Loop 1.

have been addressed in the previous design. The primary con- ditional gain to the open loop near the eighth natural frequency
cern is that closing the second loop does not degrade the per- of the plate. A pole at rad/s is used to aid in rolling off
formance already achieved with the design of the first loop. the gain. The resulting controller for the second loop is found in
This design begins with a lightly damped complex pole pair at (11) at the bottom of the page. This controller is seventh order
rad/s, . Additional phase lag is achieved with a dc gain of 3 dB. The open loop is shown in Fig. 3.
using a nonminimum phase zero at rad/s. A lead
compensator consisting of a pair of complex poles at F. Experimental Results
rad/s, and at rad/s and , and a pair The controller was implemented on a 166 MHz Pentium com-
of complex zeros at rad/s, is used to add ad- puter running Matlab Real-Time Workshop. Keithley Metrabyte

(10)

(11)
HEATWOLE et al.: ROBUST FEEDBACK CONTROL OF FLOW-INDUCED STRUCTURAL RADIATION OF SOUND
Fig. 3. Sensitivity chart for Loop 2.
analog to digital and digital to analog cards were used. The
sample rate of the controller was 15 kHz. Wavetek 852 low-pass
filters set at 5 kHz were used to prevent aliasing of the feedback
signals.
Closed-loop stability was achieved over the full range of oper-
ation of the wind tunnel. The uncontrolled and controlled sound
pressure level responses for the first microphone location are
shown in Fig. 4 for a flow velocity of 35.8 m/s (80 mi/h). The
sound pressure level reductions are approximately 14 dB, 3 dB,
8 dB, and 1 dB at the first, second, fourth, and eighth resonance,
respectively. The overall sound pressure level reduction across
the 100–1000 Hz band is 6 dB.
The uncontrolled and controlled sound pressure level
responses for the second microphone location are shown in
Fig. 5 for a flow velocity of 35.8 m/s (80 mi/h). The sound
pressure level reductions are approximately 14 dB, 13 dB, 8
dB, and 3 dB at the first, second, fourth, and eighth resonance,
respectively.
The sound pressure level reductions using the same controller
were measured for various flow velocities. Larger sound pres-
sure level reductions were achieved at the higher flow speeds.
For the highest flow speed 51.4 m/s (115 mi/h), sound pressure
level reductions of 15 dB, 15 dB, and 9 dB at the first, second,
and fourth modal resonance were achieved.
The uncontrolled and controlled sound pressure levels at
other microphone locations were also measured. An array of
microphones in a plane parallel to the plate were used. All
microphone locations achieved sound pressure level reductions
233
over the 100–1000 Hz band. The smallest sound pressure level
reduction achieved was 4.6 dB while the largest was 6.0 dB
across the 100–1000 Hz band.
G. Robustness Investigation
To investigate uniform shifts in natural frequencies, discrete
masses (tire weights) were added to the panel. Four different sets
of mass were added to the panel. The plant transfer functions
were measured for each set of additional mass. Additionally,
the controlled and uncontrolled sound pressure levels for the
MIMO controller were measured for each mass configuration.
The total mass added was 84, 168, 413, and 731 g for tests 1, 2,
3, and 4, respectively. Mass set 4 represents an increase of 40%
in the mass of the plate. The first, second, and fourth resonances
shifted by 20%, 14%, and 14%, respectively.
The closed-loop system was stable under the full range of
flow speeds for all four sets of additional masses using the con-
troller designed for the original system. The additional masses
for sets 1, 2, and 3 did not significantly reduce the closed-loop
performance. The microphone location for the robustness study
was cm, , and . Sound pressure
level reductions of approximately 14 and 13 dB were achieved
at the first and second resonance, respectively. These reduc-
tions are similar to those achieved for the case with no addi-
tional mass. The reduction associated with the fourth mode,
however, was less than that achieved with no additional mass.
Furthermore, the sound pressure level was increased by approx-
234 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 8, NO. 2, MARCH 2000

Fig. 4. SPL at Mic 1 for MIMO controller (35.8 m/s); uncontrolled (—); controlled SPL (– –).

Fig. 5. SPL at Mic 2 for MIMO controller (35.8 m/s); uncontrolled (—); controlled SPL (– –).

imately 5 dB in the frequency region just below the fourth res-
onance. The additional mass of set 4 significantly impacted the
closed-loop performance. The sound pressure level reductions
were approximately 8 dB at the first and second resonance.
These reductions are significantly less than those achieved pre-
viously. Furthermore, the sound pressure level associated with
the fourth mode was increased by 4 dB.
V. CONCLUSION
A practical robust feedback controller implementation for
flow induced structural radiation of sound is presented. The
robust controller design incorporates uncertainty to ensure
stability. Significant sound pressure level reductions were
obtained across the 100–1000 Hz region at multiple micro-
HEATWOLE et al.: ROBUST FEEDBACK CONTROL OF FLOW-INDUCED STRUCTURAL RADIATION OF SOUND
phone locations. The controller achieved performance using a
small controller dc gain and low controller order. This result
is obtained as a direct consequence of the ability of the design
method to utilize beneficial plant characteristics. This was
accomplished by using the controller to position the panel
resonances between the 0-db sensitivity contours. The small
controller dc gain and low controller order was a direct conse-
quence of the ability of the design method to utilize beneficial
plant characteristics. Finally, the controller design methodology
was shown to be robust to large system uncertainty for cases
where there is a uniform shift in the system resonances. The
plant dynamics were modified by the addition of discretized
masses. The closed-loop was found to be stable with respect to
perturbations in the natural frequencies of 20%.
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[6] J. S. Bendat and A. G. Piersol, Random Data: Analysis and Measurement
Procedures. New York: Wiley, 1971.
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Radiation of Sound,” Ph.D. dissertation, 1997.
[8] F. Fahy, Sound and Structural Vibration Radiation, Transmission and
Response. New York: Academic, 1985.
Craig M. Heatwole was born in Alexandria, VA,
in 1969. He received the B.S. degree in mechanical
engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University, Blacksburg, in 1991 and the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in 1993 and
1997, respectively.
Since 1997 he has worked for the Aerospace Cor-
poration as a member of the Control Analysis Depart-
ment. His research interests are system identification
and control of lightly damped structures.
235
Matthew A. Franchek (M’94) received the
B.S.M.E. degree in 1987 from the University of
Texas at Arlington, the M.S.M.E. degree in 1988,
and his Ph.D. degree in 1991, both from Texas A&M
University, College Station.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Me-
chanical Engineering at Purdue University. His
general research interests focus on developing the
science and technology enabling smart products. His
current research efforts include the development of
automated nonlinear modeling techniques, nonlinear
feedback controller design methodologies, multivariable controller design
techniques with prespecified integrity and diagnostic based controller reconfig-
uration technology. His application areas of interest include internal combustion
engines, gas turbine engines, hydraulic systems, and noise/vibration control.
Dr. Franchek has received numerous teaching awards including the 1994 and
1999 Best Teacher Award in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue.
He was also awarded the 1997 Feddersen Faculty Fellowship in Mechatronics
for his work in smart machines.
Robert J. Bernhard received the B.S. degree in
mechanical engineering from Iowa State University,
Ames, in 1973, the M.S. degree in mechanical en-
gineering from the University of Maryland, College
Park, in 1976, and the Ph.D. degree in engineering
mechanics from Iowa State University in 1982.
He was employed in the Structural Dynamics
Group of the Westinghouse Defense and Electronics
Center in Baltimore from 1973 through 1977 and
as an Assistant Professor of Freshman Engineering
at Iowa State University from 1977 to 1982. Upon
completion of the Ph.D. degree in 1982, he joined the faculty of the School
of Mechanical Engineering of Purdue University as an Assistant Professor.
He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1987 and Professor in 1991. He
became the Director of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories in January, 1994 and
Codirector of the Institute for Safe, Quiet, and Durable Highways in 1998.
Since joining the faculty of Purdue University, he has been affiliated with
the Acoustics and Noise Control Research Program of the Ray W. Herrick
Laboratories. His research activities include investigations of numerical noise
control design methods, noise source identification, acoustic imaging, active
noise and vibration control, adaptable machines, and machinery noise control
applications. He has directed the research of 40 engineering graduates and
has coauthored more than 170 journal and conference publications on various
aspects of noise control engineering, numerical methods, vibrations, and
design.