Conditions for transmission path analysis in energy distribution models

In this work, we explore under which conditions transmission path analysis (TPA) developed for statistical energy analysis (SEA) can be applied to the less restrictive energy distribution (ED) models. It is shown that TPA can be extended without problems to proper-SEA systems whereas the situation is not so clear for quasi-SEA systems. In the general case, it has been found that a TPA can always be performed on an ED model if its inverse influence energy coefficient (EIC) matrix turns to have negative off-diagonal entries. If this condition is satisfied, it can be shown that the inverse EIC matrix automatically becomes an M-matrix. An ED graph can then be defined for it and use can be made of graph theory ranking path algorithms, previously developed for SEA systems, to classify dominant paths in ED models. A small mechanical system consisting of connected plates has been used to illustrate some of the exposed theoretical results.