Case-study evaluations of the acoustical designs of renovated university classrooms

The acoustical characteristics of 14 university classrooms at the University of British Columbia were measured before and after renovation—seven of these are discussed in detail here. From these measurements, and theoretical considerations, values of quantities used to assess each classroom configuration were predicted, and used to evaluate renovation quality. Information on each renovation was determined with the help of the university campus-planning office and/or the project acoustical consultant. These were related to the evaluation results in order to determine the relationship between design and acoustical quality. The criteria focused on the quality of verbal communication in the classrooms. Room-average Speech Intelligibility (SI) and its physical correlate, Speech Transmission Index (STI), were used to quantify verbal-communication quality. A simplified STI-calculation procedure was applied. The results indicate that some renovations were beneficial, others were not. Verbal-communication quality varied from ‘poor’ to ‘good’. The effect of a renovation depends on a complex interplay between changes in the reverberation and changes in the signal-to-noise level difference, as affected by sound absorption and the source outputs. Renovations which reduce noise are beneficial unless signal-to-noise level differences remain optimal. Renovations often put too much emphasis on adding sound absorption to control reverberation, at the expense of lower speech levels, particularly at the backs of classrooms. The absorption and noise contributed by room occupants has apparently often been neglected.     

Selection of meaningless steady noise for masking of speech

This paper focuses on masking speech with meaningless steady noise as a way of realizing a comfortable sound environment. As a basis for research, meaningless steady noise at minimum sound pressure levels for masking of male or female meaningful speech is considered, based on psychological experiments using a method of adjustment. From the results, band-limited pink noise can be selected as the most effective noise for masking of speech. In the case of speech with a lower sound pressure level, the sound pressure level of the meaningless steady noise needs to be a little higher.     

A discontinuous Galerkin method/HLLC solver for the Euler equations

This paper proposes a fully three‐dimensional non‐linear Euler methodology for solving aerodynamic and acoustic problems in the presence of strong shocks and rarefactions. It uses a discontinuous Galerkin method (DGM) within the element, and a Riemann solver (HLLC) at the boundaries to propagate rarefactions while preserving the entropy condition and capturing shocks with no spurious oscillations. This approach is thought to marry the best aspects of finite element and finite volume methods, achieving conservation while not requiring the solution of a large matrix. Examples in which shock and rarefaction waves are well captured are presented and the propagation of acoustic pulses is well demonstrated. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effective tortuosity and different acoustic waves in porous media

Summary A simple method has been suggested to estimate the acoustic characteristics of porous structure from a hybrid model—a hybridisation of Biot's phenomenological model and the microscopic multiple-scattering theory which introduces the idea of an effective tortuosity. Without using any adjustable parameter this model may be used to provide rough estimates of the tortuosity, the fast, the shear and the slow sound speeds. The predictions are compared with observation on water-saturated glass bead samples. The author of this paper has agreed to not receive the proofs for correction.     

Frequency fine-tuning in Class IV flextensional transducers

Class IV flextensional transducers (FTs) are the best-known FTs in literature. These are light-weight projectors (compared to the conventional Tonpilz designs) with capability for high power delivery at low frequencies. The resonance frequencies of this type of transducers are known to be dominantly dependent on the characteristics of the outer shell than on the driver stack. Consequently, the method of achieving fine-tuning of the transducer by modifying the characteristics of the stack, as practiced in the case of Tonpilz designs, is not very effective. This paper describes a method for fine-tuning of the frequency of a Class IV FT, which involves only a modification of a pair of small components used for coupling the stack to the transducer. The effectiveness of the method is examined by finite element modelling using the package ATILA, in the case of a 3 kHz aluminium shell transducer. Experimental results are also presented.     

INITIAL VALUE TECHNIQUES FOR THE HELMHOLTZ AND MAXWELL EQUATIONS

We study the initial value problem of the Helmholtz equation with spatially variable wave number. We show that it can be stabilized by suppressing the evanescent waves. The stabilized Helmholtz equation can be solved numerically by a marching scheme combined with FFT. The resulting algorithm has complexity n^2 log n on a n x n grid. We demonstrate the efficacy of the method by numerical examples with caustics. For the Maxwell equation the same treatment is possible after reducing it to a second order system. We show how the method can be used for inverse problems arising in acoustic tomography and microwave imaging.     

A comparison of measured room acoustics metrics using a spherical microphone array and conventional methods

The traditional microphone configuration used to measure room impulse responses (IRs) according to ISO 3382:2009 is an omnidirectional and figure-8 microphone pair. IRs measurements were taken in a 2500-seat auditorium to determine how the results from a spherical microphone array (an mh acoustics Eigenmike-em32) compare to those from the traditional microphone setup (a Brüel & Kjær Type-4192 omnidirectional microphone and a Sennheiser MKH30 figure-8 microphone). Measurements were obtained at six receiver locations, with three repetitions each in order to first evaluate repeatability. The metrics considered in this study were: reverberation time (T30), early decay time (EDT), clarity index (C80), strength (G), lateral energy fraction (J_LF) and late lateral energy level (L_J). Before calculating these quantities, the IRs were filtered to equalize the frequency response of the microphones and sound source. For the spherical array measurements, the omnidirectional (monopole) and figure-8 (dipole) patterns were extracted using beamforming. In terms of repeatability, the average standard deviation of the three measurements at each receiver location averaged across all metrics, receivers, and octave bands was found to be 0.01 just noticeable differences (JNDs). The analysis comparing the measurements from the two microphone configurations yielded differences which were less than 1 JND for the majority of metrics, with a few exceptions of EDT and C80 slightly above 1 JND. Based on this case study, these results indicate that spherical microphone arrays can be used to obtain valid room IR measurements, which will allow for the development of new metrics utilizing the higher spatial resolution made possible with spherical arrays.