Abstract
Statistical Energy (or similar) Analysis may use radiation efficiencies as a means of estimating acoustic power radiated by plates in bending vibration. It is common to calculate them using uncoupled sinusoidal mode shapes of simply supported plates to account for the plate boundaries and rib stiffeners. This paper shows that, when applied to steel plates bounded by water on one side, this procedure can significantly overestimate the acoustic power radiated for frequencies below about one-eighth of the coincidence frequency. With water on both sides of the plate, the cutoff is increased to about one-fourth of coincidence.