Numerical studies of acoustic pulse scattering by baffled two-dimensional membranes.

A new method for solving the scattering problem of acoustic pulses by baffled membranes is described. It is an adaptation of the finite difference technique which uses an ''artificial'' boundary condition to mimic an infinite region. The numerical method is used on several problems involving a plane compact pulse. It is also used on a time-harmonic pulse of infinite extent. This pulse generates a time-harmonic response as t→∞; this is proved in the Appendix. The numerical scheme is marched out in time until the transients have decayed away and a time-harmonic solution has been established. This ''relaxation'' scheme yields accurate solutions in a reasonable amount of time without requiring heavy or light fluid loading assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]