Characterisation of valves as sound sources: Structure-borne sound

Taps and other valves are major sound sources in piping systems and can cause unacceptable noise levels in buildings. The noise results from the fluid-, structure- and air-borne sound emission. At present the acoustic emission of water appliances is tested according to a European standard, the shortcomings of which are apparent as a result of a round robin test of different European laboratories. As a result, there are currently neither acceptable measurement methods for water appliances available nor input data for prediction models. This paper considers methods of characterizing water appliances as sources of structure-borne sound. The concepts of mobility and free velocity are employed for a source characterisation based on power. Taps are considered alone and also in combination with a basin, where again the mobility and free velocity are used. A reception plate method is assessed as an alternative. The two methods each provide an independent characterisation of a structure-borne sound source as a single value. The values are on a power basis and provide input data suitable for prediction of the installed structure-borne power and thence the resultant sound pressure in adjacent rooms. Measured and predicted values of sound pressure level, caused by a wash-basin installed in an adjacent room, are compared.     

基于四水听器的充水弹性管声速测量方法*

实验室中水声材料声学参数的测量主要在水声声管中进行。管内平面波声速是正确测量这些参数的基础。该文提出一种基于四水听器结合不同边界的测量充水弹性管中声速的新方法。该方法利用4个固定位置处的水听器,采用最小二乘的方法,使得两组水听器分别得到的声管末端入射波声压差值的平方最小的声速即为管内平面波声速。该方法利用单频信号,在每一频率点均可测得声速,可以在任一种声管末端边界下进行测量,同时无需知道各水听器到边界的精确距离,在文中的3种边界下声速测量结果具有很好的一致性,实验操作简单、误差很小。该方法的仿真结果与管内声速的理论值吻合得很好,同时实验测量结果与仿真值之间的误差很小,证明了方法的准确性以及鲁棒性,为声管声速测量提供一个很好的思路。     

Laws approximating the decay of the vector fields of the vibration velocity and intensity for a monopole source in a waveguide

Analytical approximations are derived and a computer simulation is performed in order to study the regularities determining the decay of the components of vibration velocity vectors and low-frequency signal intensity with an increase in distance. It is established that the sound pressure and horizontal components of the vibration velocity and intensity decay similarly, whereas the vertical components decay more rapidly. It is shown that approximating dependences are determined to a great extent by the distance between the source and detectors and are in good agreement with the exact laws describing the decay of the regular field part.     

含红外发散的低温玻璃超声声速理论

本文采用红外发散和隧道态模型,讨论玻璃超声声速在3K温度以下的行为。我们把声速的改变看作两部分组成:无弛豫过程和有弛豫过程。前者采用“玻色型元激发”理论处理;后者采用“含红外发散的隧道弛豫”理论处理。我们不但得到与实验符合较好的声速-温度曲线,并且解释了一般频率下(10⁷Hz,T为0.3—1K),声速与频率无关的lnT规律和高频下(2GHz,T<0.1K)声速存在极小值的现象。 关键词：     

Airborne sound insulation and graphical indices

The use of graphical indices is interpreted as an approximate approach to the estimation of sound insulation performance of building elements. Differences of weighted sound pressure levels are considered as quantitative measures for subjective sound insulation. The indices considered are formed by shifting a reference curve until the highest position is found at which certain specifications, or rules, are met. General expressions are mathematically derived for the maximum differences between graphical indices and sound insulation in two cases: a maximum allowable sum rule for unfavourable deviations, and a combination for restriction of the maximum single deviation. The results indicate that the maximum deviation rule limits the variation between sound insulation and indices in a very efficient way. This comparison leads to I_a being preferred to R_w, which are special cases of the study.     

Predicting crystal structures with data mining of quantum calculations

Predicting and characterizing the crystal structure of materials is a key problem in materials research and development. It is typically addressed with highly accurate quantum mechanical computations on a small set of candidate structures, or with empirical rules that have been extracted from a large amount of experimental information, but have limited predictive power. In this Letter, we transfer the concept of heuristic rule extraction to a large library of ab initio calculated information, and we demonstrate that this can be developed into a tool for crystal structure prediction.     

Calculation of B/A for n-alkane liquids using the Tait equation

The B/A parameter of acoustic nonlinearity was calculated for a series of n-alkane liquids using the Tait PVT equation of state supplemented with specific heat data. The calculations of sound speed, sound speed derivatives, the two components of B/A, and the value of B/A itself were compared with experimental data taken from the literature and with earlier calculations using a different equation of state. In addition, a comparison of the results with Ballou's rule (linear relation of B/A and reciprocal sound speed) was made. It is concluded that B/A can be calculated from the Tait equation of state with about the same accuracy as direct measurements of sound speed versus pressure and temperature, though the the temperature derivatives of the sound speed are calculated with much lower accuracy than pressure derivatives. The calculations made using the Tait equation are about the same accuracy as calculations made using our equation of state. Also, Ballou's rule does not hold for these liquids.     

A new rule of vibration sampling for predicting acoustical radiation from rectangular plates

Structural surface velocity distribution is often used to predict structural borne sound radiation. However the sampling interval of velocity should be chosen carefully to increase the prediction accuracy and to reduce the system cost. In this paper, several factors affecting the sampling interval are theoretically analyzed and discussed for a vibrating baffled rectangular plate. A new rule for the determination of the sampling interval is formulated. Using this rule, the results from both numerical simulations and experiments may be explained well.     

Detection of chemical damage in concrete using ultrasound

This research deals with a non-destructive method for characterizing the degraded cover of concrete structures using high-frequency ultrasound (0.5-1 MHz). Although such a frequency range is unusual in civil engineering, it is well suited to the kind of defect to be detected, as it corresponds to a thin near-to-surface layer with increased porosity and density of microcracks. In order to assess the feasibility of detecting concrete cover degradation, velocity and attenuation measurements were made on both halves of a concrete slab. One half was immersed into an acid solution for 15-45 days, while the other half remained sound. These measurements were made for longitudinal, transverse and surface waves. The results obtained show a 23% decrease of ultrasonic pulse velocity and a 1000% increase of attenuation in the degraded material relative to the sound material. It is thus possible to detect and characterize concrete cover degradation using high-frequency ultrasound. Although attenuation measurements in heterogeneous media are difficult, their sensitivity to degradation is very high.     

Invariant strings and pattern-recognizing properties of one-dimensional cellular automata

A cellular automaton is a discrete dynamical system whose evolution is governed by a deterministic rule involving local interactions. It is shown that given an arbitrary string of values and an arbitrary neighborhood size (representing the range of interaction), a simple procedure can be used to find the rules of that neighborhood size under which the string is invariant. The set of nearestneighbor rules for which invariant strings exist is completely specified, as is the set of strings invariant under each such rule. For any automaton rule, an associated filtering rule is defined for which the only attractors are spatial sequences consisting of concatenations of invariant strings. A result is provided defining the rule of minimum neighborhood size for which an arbitrarily chosen string is the unique invariant string. The applications of filtering rules to pattern recognition problems are discussed.     

On acoustic radiation by a rigid object in a fluid flow

A problem of sound radiation by an absolutely rigid object, moving with respect to the surrounding fluid, is considered on the basis of the Lighthill's equation for aerodynamic sound. An integral representation of the radiated acoustic field is utilized, where the field is characterized as the sum of three fields, generated by a volume distribution of monopoles and by distributions of monopoles and dipoles on the surface of the rigid object. It is shown that, due to a discontinuity of Lighthill's stress tensor on the rigid boundary, a layer of surface divergence of hydrodynamic stresses on the boundary must be taken into account when evaluating the volume integral over Lighthill's quadrupole sources. When the contribution of the surface divergence is included in the solution of Lighthill's equation, amplitudes of the monopole and dipole sound radiated by the rigid object are shown to depend on the potential components of the normal velocity and the pressure on the rigid surface. The obtained solution is compared with Curle's solution for this problem, which establishes that the sound radiation by a rigid object is determined by the force exerted by the object upon the fluid. Both solutions are applied to two known problems of sound scattering and radiation by a rigid sphere in variable pressure and velocity fields. It is shown that predictions based on the obtained solution are equivalent to the results known from literature, whereas Curle's solution gives predictions contradicting the known results. It is also shown that the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings equation, which coincides with Curle's equation for an immoveable rigid object, does not lead to the correct predictions as well.     

The coherence of reverberant sound fields

A new method of measuring spatial correlation functions in reverberant sound fields is presented. It is shown that coherence functions determined with appropriate spectral resolution contain the same information as the corresponding correlation functions, and that measuring such coherence functions is a far more efficient way of obtaining this information. The technique is then used to verify theoretical predictions of the spatial correlation between various components of the particle velocity in a diffuse sound field. Other possible applications of the technique are discussed and illustrated with experimental results obtained in an ordinary room.     

Experimental study on correlation between sound velocity and solute molecular weight in polyethylene glycol solution

In this study,ultrasound grating was used to measure the sound velocity in solutions of ethylene glycol and polyethylene glycol with molecular weights of 200,600,2000,and 10000.We found Parthasarathy empirical rule,that is,sound velocity is higher in the solution of larger molecules,is invalid in the case of polyethylene glycol solution. We tried to provide a tentative explanation using the Flory-Krigbaum's chained block cloud model.     

运用液体声学理论研究超临界二氧化碳的声特性

利用液体声学模型，根据美国国家标准局提供的二氧化碳声速、密度、摩尔体积和绝热压缩系数数据，计算了气态、液态和超临界态二氧化碳在不同温度和压力条件下的摩尔声速、摩尔压缩系数及Van der Waals 常数. 分析发现，在较宽的温度和压力范围内，液体中的声学模型能够很好地运用于超临界态二氧化碳的研究. 并在液体声学模型适用范围内，计算了超临界二氧化碳在不同温度及压力状态下的表面张力、粘度、自扩散系数，为超临界流体技术提供了参考数据，并分析了这些参量的变化规律.     

Nonlinear theory of ionic sound waves in a hot quantum-degenerate electron-positron-ion plasma

A collisionless nonmagnetized e-p-i plasma consisting of quantum-degenerate gases of ions, electrons, and positrons at nonzero temperatures is considered. The dispersion equation for isothermal ionic sound waves is derived and analyzed, and an exact expression is obtained for the linear velocity of ionic sound. Analysis of the dispersion equation has made it possible to determine the ranges of parameters in which nonlinear solutions in the form of solitons should be sought. A nonlinear theory of isothermal ionic sound waves is developed and used for obtaining and analyzing the exact solution to the system of initial equations. Analysis has been carried out by the method of the Bernoulli pseudopotential. The ranges of phase velocities of periodic ionic sound waves and soliton velocities are determined. It is shown that in the plasma under investigation, these ranges do not overlap and that the soliton velocity cannot be lower than the linear velocity of ionic sound. The profiles of physical quantities in a periodic wave and in a soliton are constructed, as well as the dependences of the velocity of sound and the critical velocity on the ionic concentration in the plasma. It is shown that these velocities increase with the ion concentration.     

运用液体声学理论研究超临界二氧化碳的声特性

利用液体声学模型,根据美国国家标准局提供的二氧化碳声速、密度、摩尔体积和绝热压缩系数数据,计算了气态、液态和超临界态二氧化碳在不同温度和压力条件下的摩尔声速、摩尔压缩系数及Van der Waals 常数. 分析发现,在较宽的温度和压力范围内,液体中的声学模型能够很好地运用于超临界态二氧化碳的研究. 并在液体声学模型适用范围内,计算了超临界二氧化碳在不同温度及压力状态下的表面张力、粘度、自扩散系数,为超临界流体技术提供了参考数据,并分析了这些参量的变化规律. 关键词： 超临界二氧化碳 声速 摩尔声速 摩尔压缩系数     

Coupled QCD sum rules for positive and negative-parity nucleons

A new approach of the QCD sum rule is proposed in which positive and negative-parity baryons couple with each other. With positive and negative-parity states explicitly taken into account, sum rules are derived by means of the dispersion relation in energy. The method is applied to the nucleon channel and the parity splitting of the nucleon resonance states is studied. It is found that the obtained sum rules have a very good Borel stability. This suggests that the ansatz for the spectral function in the present sum rule approximates the physical spectrum better than the usual lowest pole plus continuum ansatz. The predicted masses of the positive and negative nucleons reproduce the experimental ones fairly well. Especially, the mass difference is extremely close to the experimental value.     

Electromagnetic-acoustic transformation in an erbium single crystal

The temperature dependences of the electromagnetic-acoustic transformation (EMAT) efficiency and the velocity of transverse sound for the erbium rare-earth metal with three complex magnetic structures are experimentally investigated at different external constant magnetic fields. An intensive generation and anomalies in the velocity of transverse sound are revealed in the temperature range of the magnetic phase transitions. It is found that an increase in the magnetic field leads to an increase in the sound generation efficiency and a decrease in the anomalies in the velocity of sound. The relationships for the efficiency of transverse-sound generation through the magnetoelastic mechanism are theoretically derived for two magnetic structures of erbium. It is demonstrated that an increase in the EMAT efficiency in the phase transition range is associated with the specific features in the static and dynamic magnetic susceptibilities of erbium.     

Negative-viscosity lattice gases

A new irreversible collision rule is introduced for lattice-gas automata. The rule maximizes the flux of momentum in the direction of the local momentum gradient, yielding a negative shear viscosity. Numerical results in 2D show that the negative viscosity leads to the spontaneous ordering of the velocity field, with vorticity resolvable down to one lattice-link length. The new rule may be used in conjunction with previously proposed collision rules to yield a positive shear viscosity lower than the previous rules provide. In particular, Poiseuille flow tests demonstrate a decrease in viscosity by more than a factor of 2.