Neoclassical Solution of Transient Interaction of Plane Acoustic Waves with a Spherical Elastic Shell

A detailed solution to the transient interaction of plane acoustic waves with a spherical elastic shell was obtained more than a quarter of a century ago based on the classical separation of variables, series expansion, and Laplace transform techniques. An eight-term summation of the time history series was sufficient for the convergence of the shell deflection and strain, and to a lesser degree, the shell velocity. Since then, the results have been used routinely for validation of solution techniques and computer methods for the evaluation of underwater explosion response of submerged structures. By utilizing modern algorithms and exploiting recent advances of computer capacities and floating point mathematics, sufficient terms of the inverse Laplace transform series solution can now be accurately computed. Together with the application of the Cesaro summation using up to 70 terms of the series, two primary deficiencies of the previous solution are now remedied: meaningful time histories of higher time derivative data such as acceleration and pressure are now generated using a sufficient number of terms in the series; and uniform convergence around the discontinuous step wave front is now obtained, completely eradicating spurious oscillations due to the Gibbs' phenomenon. New results of time histories of response items of interest are presented.