Sensitivity and variance analysis of statistical energy analysis solution

Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) is the most acknowledged method to predict the averaged sound and vibration levels in mechanical systems. A limit of this analysis is that of providing only the mean value of the variables of interest, while no information on the standard deviation is obtained as it would be expected by a statistical approach. In this paper the variance of SEA solution is investigated by introducing a random perturbation on the SEA coefficients (coupling loss factors and injected powers) by using a perturbation approach. Moreover, by the same approach, a sensitivity analysis of SEA solution is developed. Some theoretical relationships of the standard deviation of SEA solution are obtained and discussed.