It is a little over 75 years since two of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century collaborated on finding the exact solution of a particular equation with semi-infinite convolution type integral operator. The elegance and analytical sophistication of the method, now called the Wiener-Hopf technique, impress all who use it. Its applicability to almost all branches of engineering, mathematical physics and applied mathematics is borne out by the many thousands of papers published on the subject since its conception. The Wiener-Hopf technique remains an extremely important tool for modern scientists, and the areas of application continue to broaden. This special issue of the Journal of Engineering Mathematics is dedicated to the work of Wiener and Hopf, and includes a number of articles which demonstrate the relevance of the technique to a representative range of model problems.

A class of boundary value problems, that has application in the propagation of waves along ducts in which the boundaries are wave-bearing, is considered. This class of problems is characterised by the presence of high order derivatives of the dependent variable(s) in the duct boundary conditions. It is demonstrated that the underlying eigenfunctions are linearly dependent and, most significantly, that an eigenfunction expansion representation of a suitably smooth function, say f (y), converges point-wise to that function. Two physical examples are presented. It is demonstrated that, in both cases, the eigenfunction representation of the solution is rendered unique via the application of suitable edge conditions. Within the context of these two examples, a detailed discussion of the issue of completeness is presented.

There are numerous interesting physical problems, in the fields of elasticity, acoustics and electromagnetism etc., involving the propagation of waves in ducts or pipes. Often the problems consist of pipes or ducts with abrupt changes of material properties or geometry. For example, in car silencer design, where there is a sudden change in cross-sectional area, or when the bounding wall is lagged. As the wavenumber spectrum in such problems is usually discrete, the wave-field is representable by a superposition of travelling or evanescent wave modes in each region of constant duct properties. The solution to the reflection or transmission of waves in ducts is therefore most frequently obtained by mode-matching across the interface at the discontinuities in duct properties. This is easy to do if the eigenfunctions in each region form a complete orthogonal set of basis functions; therefore, orthogonality relations allow the eigenfunction coefficients to be determined by solving a simple system of linear algebraic equations.The objective of this paper is to examine a class of problems in which the boundary conditions at the duct walls are not of Dirichlet, Neumann or of impedance type, but involve second or higher derivatives of the dependent variable. Such wall conditions are found in models of fluid/structural interaction, for example membrane or plate boundaries, and in electromagnetic wave propagation. In these models the eigenfunctions are not orthogonal, and also extra edge conditions, imposed at the points of discontinuity, must be included when mode matching. This article presents a new orthogonality relation, involving eigenfunctions and their derivatives, for the general class of problems involving a scalar wave equation and high-order boundary conditions. It also discusses the procedure for incorporating the necessary edge conditions. Via two specific examples from structural acoustics, both of which have exact solutions obtainable by other techniques, it is shown that the orthogonality relation allows mode matching to follow through in the same manner as for simpler boundary conditions. That is, it yields coupled algebraic systems for the eigenfunction expansions which are easily solvable, and by which means more complicated cases, such as that illustrated in figure 1, are tractable.

Copyright @ 2011 SAGE PublicationsOver 50 years have elapsed since the first experimental observations of dynamic edge phenomena on elastic structures, yet the topic remains a diverse and vibrant source of research activity. This article provides a focused history and overview of such phenomena with a particular emphasis on structures such as strips, rods, plates and shells. Within this context, some of the recent research highlights are discussed and the contents of this special issue of Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids on dynamical edge phenomena are introduced

The scattering of a fluid-structure coupled wave at a flanged junction between two flexible waveguides is investigated. The flange is assumed to be rigid on one side and soft on the other; this enables a solution to be formulated using mode-matching. It is shown that both the choice of the edge conditions imposed on the plates at the junction and the choice of incident forcing significantly affect the transmission of energy along the duct. In particular, the edge conditions crucially affect the transmission of structure-borne vibration but have little effect on fluid-borne noise. Given the singular nature of the velocity field at the flange tip, particular attention is paid to the validity of the mode-matching method. It is demonstrated that the velocity field can be accurately reconstructed by incorporating the Lanczos filter into the truncated modal expansions. The mode-matching method is thus confirmed as an viable tool for this class of problem.