Abstract
This paper presents an investigation of the force transmission from a rigid body mounting system to a flexible foundation with light and heavy fluid loading under the force and moment excitation. The analytical expression has been derived in which the flexible foundation effects are incorporated into a revised system stiffness matrix that is derived from the receptance matrix at mounting points. A typical case with a thin infinite plate as the foundation has been studied with the point and transfer receptances theoretically and numerically analysed in the case of light and heavy fluid loading. The results show that, compared with the rigid foundation, the force transmission is reduced and system natural frequencies are shifted. The detailed analysis demonstrates that the force reduction and frequency shifting are more obvious at low frequencies where the receptance value is significant. The study is also carried out to compare the transfer receptances from different waves in plate as it couples with water with the objective to simplify the calculation of receptance. It is found that, in the low frequency and after a short distance from driving point, the transfer receptance calculation for the heavy fluid loading can be simplified by only accounting the contribution from free wave which may easily be evaluated from the point receptance in air. It implies the plate response under heavy fluid loading could be directly derived from that with light fluid loading.