Statistical Energy Analysis

It has been more than fifty years since the idea of applying statistical physics methods and results to vibroacoustic problems was established. At the heart of this development by early contributors, and in particular R.H. Lyon, was in essence thermodynamics with modes playing the role of atoms. Since that time, the idea was developed further over the years and a consistent theoretical corpus has been set which is now referred to as statistical energy analysis (SEA).

The system is divided into multiple subsystems exchanging energy between each other and with a few strong assumptions, SEA ensures the proportionality between exchanged powers and the difference of mean vibrational energies between two subsystems.

Representation of energy exchanges between three subsystems in SEA