I think I shall never undertake to write a book again. If one were a scamp, the work would be easy enough, but for an honest man it is dreadful.

John Tyndall, 1859

Tyndall went on to write another eighteen books!

As you read these words you are almost certainly experiencing various manifestations of the process of vibrational interaction between fluids and solid structures. Traffic noise may be heard through the windows of the room; the plumbing system may be announcing its operation; or perhaps the radio or the iPod is providing background music for your pleasure. The first two examples represent the undesirable aspect of this phenomenon and suggest that study of its mechanism is of importance to those concerned with the control and reduction of noise. The third example shows that the process may be put to good use: vibrations of musical instruments, microphone diaphragms and loudspeakers act as intermediaries in the generation and reproduction of sound which, at least for some listeners, is the very antithesis of noise. The principal function of this book is to explain the physical process of interaction and to introduce the reader to various mathematical models and theoretical analyses of the behaviour of coupled fluid structural systems. Many examples of experimental data are presented to illustrate the theory. This field of study is known as vibroacoustics or, in the USA, structural acoustics .

Acoustic vibrations in fluids and solid structures essentially involve the propagation of wave motion throughout the supporting media, although explicit recognition...