Acoustics Instruments and Measurements

May 2013, Caseros, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

MEASUREMENT OF SOUND ABSORPTION COEFFICIENTS

AGUSTN Y. ARIAS 1
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Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. agustin.arias@outlook.com

1. INTRODUCTION The absorption coefficients of a material allow to know to what extent the incident sound energy is absorbed. All materials absorb a greater or lesser extent some of the sound energy incident on them. This property is of vital importance in the design of rooms where it is necessary to emphasize the behavior of the sound field within. Acoustic parameters such as the reverberation time (RT) are directly dependent on the absorption properties of the materials used as termination of the various surfaces that compose an enclosure. Therefore, the designer must know the absorption properties that each material has to know which to choose when looking for the highest degree of acoustic comfort. This paper describes the procedures undertaken to assess and obtain the absorption coefficients of a set of pieces of glass wool, universally used for its acoustic and thermal performance, based on the specifications of the ISO-354 standard: "Measurement of sound absorption in a reverberation room" [1]. 2. GENERALITIES OF ISO-354 STANDARD ISO-354 details the procedures and considerations to perform the tests for determining the absorption coefficients of the material studied using a reverberation chamber. Basically this method consists in comparing the reverberation time of the camera with and without the absorbent material placed inside, resulting in differences for each third octave band between 100 and 5000 Hz. For this, we use the Sabines RT equation:

volume, diffusion, etc. Mostly it is suggested that the volume of the chamber is between 150 and 500 m3. Furthermore it must be satisfied that:

Imax is the length of the longest straight line that enters in the chamber. As for the material under test, the Standard specifies that it must cover at least an area of 10 m2 and the relationship between the width and length should be between 0.7 and 1. The material must be positioned so that the shortest distance between its edges and the walls is 1 m and also the edges not be located parallel to any walls. In addition, the standard requires that the product of the number of microphone positions and the number of source positions is of at least 12, being possible any combination that meets this criterion. The microphones must be separated from each other a minimum distance of 1.5 m, 2 m from the source and 1 m from the walls. As for the source, each position used must be at least 3 m away from any other position.
3. LIMITATIONS OF THE MEASUREMENTS

A: Equivalent absorption area [m2] V: Room volume [m3] T: Reverberation time of the room [s] c: Sound velocity [340 m/s] m: Air attenuation coefficient [m-1] The Standard also specifies the requirements to be met by reverberation chamber in terms of size,

The measurements should be performed under certain conditions that do not meet the requirements imposed by ISO-354. First, it was not possible to access a reverberation chamber, so that the measurements were performed in a classroom in the Annex building of the National University of Tres de Febrero (Figure 1). The volume of the classroom is 61 m3, forcing a reduction of almost all distances between the material under test, microphones and source that defines the standard. Furthermore, under these conditions the surface area of the material also fails to meet the minimum value imposed in the standard.

Figure 2. Sine sweep configuration

Figure1: Classroom where the measurements were performed.

4. PROCEDURE 4.1. Background Noise A background noise evaluation was carried out in order to meet the acoustics conditions of the environment in which the reverberation time measurements were carried out. One minute of background noise measurement where performed, obtaining 62.5 dB as Leq result. This result allowed setting the level of radiation from the sound source so as to minimize the effects of this noise on the effective dynamic range of measurements. It can be observed that the noise is very high, especially at low frequencies. External condition, such as train and traffic noise, and the absence of sound insulation treatment in the classroom adversely affect the results obtained especially at low frequencies (<125 Hz). 4.2. Reverberation time measurements. There were 3 sets of measurements for the reverberation time of the room in different conditions: Empty Room. Room with the absorbent material grouped on the floor. Room with absorbent material dispersed around the floor. For these three conditions, it was used an omnidirectional source (Dodecahedral loudspeaker) brand OUTLINE with its respective subwoofer. Through this source it was reproduced a "Log SineSweep" generated with the AURORA plugins package in Adobe Audition [2], with the following configuration:

This signal meets the flat spectrum requirements and maintains a high signal/noise ratio. A pair of DPA 4006 microphones was used for the acquisition of the signals reproduced by the source. In total, four microphones in fixed positions were used for all measurements and three source positions (Figure 3) giving a total of 12 measurements for each set.

Figure 3. () Microphone positions. () Source positions

4.3. Arrangement of the material under test. The test material consisted of 10 pieces of glass wool Isover brand, each with different length and width dimensions. Regarding the thickness of the material, since it is not constant between each sample due to the flexibility and porosity in which they were built, it was decided to use an average thickness of 3 cm for all pieces. As mentioned in Section 4.2, it was used two different arrangements of the material. In the first test, all pieces of glass wool were grouped in the center of the room, covering a total area of 3.26 m2 (upper surface plus side surfaces). In the second test, the 10 pieces were distributed throughout the room, resulting in an increased total area of coverage, given that in this case it must be added the side surfaces of each of the pieces. This total area was
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3.95 m2. For both arrangements, the material was placed on the floor as can be seen in Figure 4.

Then, using the software Dirac 3.0 of B&K brand, they were obtained the values of the T30 reverberation time in 1/3 octave bands (100-5000 Hz) from the impulse responses for the three measurement conditions. This reverberation time were obtained by averaging the 12 values obtained in each set. Then it was used the equation of Sabine RT (Eq. 1) to obtain the "equivalent sound absorption area" A1 (empty room), A2_g (room with absorbent material grouped) and A2_d (room with absorbent material dispersed). It was supposed that the temperature and the humidity were almost constant during the measurements, so no account was taken of the term . The value of the speed of sound was set .

Figure 6. Dirac interface to obtain the average RT value in 1/3 octaves band.

Finally, the absorption coefficients obtained by the formula:

Figure 4. Absorbent material distribution. Top: grouped material. Bottom: Dispersed material

were

4.4. Measurements analysis Once all sound recordings of Log Sine-sweep were obtained (36 records total) it was proceeded to analyze them. Firstly, the impulse responses were obtained at each measurement point using the convolution process in AURORA plugins, between the recorded signal and the inverse filter of the sinesweep (Figure 5). = g, for the material grouped = d, for the material dispersed All these calculations were performed on each 1/3 octave band between 100 and 5000 Hz. 5. RESULTS The following are the results obtained from the measurements. 5.1. Reverberation time In Figure 7 it can be appreciated the reverberation time values for each of the three measurement conditions. It is observed that for the two conditions of the absorbent material arrangement, RT values are similar, with a maximum difference of 0.17 seconds in the band of 1250 Hz. Also, the values of the RT for the grouped material condition are higher than those of the dispersed material, except for the band of 315 Hz. At 200 Hz it can be seen a drop of the RT for the empty room condition. This effect may be associated with a modal influence of the room becuadse this
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Figure 5. AURORA interface to obtain the Impulse Response.

effect is present in three microphones positions for any source position. The maximum values of the RT for both material arrangements were obtained in 160 Hz.

To see how the results adjust to the official values given by the manufacturer (ISOVER) it was performed a comparison table that evidences the difference between both measurements (Table 1) [3].
Table 1. Absorption coefficients comparison.
Frequency band [Hz] Results obtained for this report Results given by the manufacturer (ISOVER)* Difference 125 0,14 0,10 0,04 250 0,43 0,32 0,11 500 0,58 0,55 0,03 1000 2000 4000 0,80 0,66 0,14 0,80 0,79 0,01 0,72 0,77 0,05

*ISOVER Panel "PL-156". Thickness 3mm. According to AC3.D11.78 essay of the Instituto de Acstica (Centro de Fsica Aplicada << Torres Quevedo>>

Figure 7. RT results for the three measurements conditions.

5.2. Absorption coefficients Figure 8 shows the values of the absorption coefficients for both arrangements of the absorbent material.

It can be seen that the highest difference is 0.14 sabines for the 1000 Hz octave band. There is not a great difference between the results, so it can be assumed that the measurements performed for this report gives estimative values of the absorption coefficients. 6. OTHER IMPORTANT ANALYSIS In addition to the measurements performed and the corresponding results obtained, there are other important criteria to take account. 6.1. Repeatability The repeatability is defined as the value below which the absolute difference between two single test results obtained with the same method on identical test material, under the same conditions can be expected to lie with a probability of 95% [4]. This value can validate to some extent the measurement processes and the results obtained. The formula to calculate the repeatability is:

Figure 8. Absorption coefficients obtained for both material arrangements.

There is a clear increase in the value of (grouped absorbent material) in the band of 315 Hz of 0.26 sabines regarding the value of (dispersed absorbent material). This difference justifies the RT variation between these arrangements for the same frequency band. Moreover, the rest of the absorption coefficients tend to be very similar. Excluding the 315 Hz band, the biggest difference between the two curves is 0.09 sabines in the 500 Hz band. 5.3. Comparison with the results obtained in laboratory

n: number of measurements (in this case n=12) t = Student distribution factor (for n=12, t=2.18) This analysis was performed over the twelve measurements of the grouped material condition. Figure 9 denotes the results obtained. It can be seen that for the 315 Hz band, the repeatability is not very much efficient. It is due to the considerable RT variations that occurred in that band, where the difference between the min value and max value is 1.01s as can be seen in Table 2. At low frequencies, the RT values also differ between different positions, but it is understandable because of the background noise influence in the T30 calculus.
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For this reason, the repeatability is less efficient in low frequencies in comparison with the others frequencies bands (except for 315 Hz, as mentioned above).
Table 2. RT Variations for the 315 third-octave band

in all tested frequency bands. Anyway, an analysis was made of the effect. The values obtained, are the sum of the effective value of the absorption coefficient and the absorption value obtained by the edge diffraction, as shown in eq. (5):

RT results for 315Hz third-octave band N of measurement Reverberation Time 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1,81 1,58 1,65 1,16 1,85 1,97 1,63 0,96 1,63 1,43 1,32 1,68
: Measured value. : Absorption coefficient considering an infinite sample material. : Edge absorption given exclusively by edge diffusion. : Wavelength. The values of may vary according to the criteria used. Using the criterion of Ten Wolde [7], takes the values shown in Figure 10. The analysis to the edge effect, results in that it does not affect significantly the values of obtained in the measurements. The maximum deviation is 0.008, calculated for in the 500 Hz frequency band.

Figure 9. Repeatability results for the grouped material condition.

Figure 10.

values according to the Ten Wolde criteria.

6.2. Edge absorption There is an "extra" absorption produced by the edges of the material. This effect known as "edge effect" can cause that some absorption coefficients are greater than 1 [5]. It occurs due to the sound diffraction phenomena that occur at the edges of the material. Generally, this effect is most evident if the edges are rigid. In addition, the effect increases with decreasing frequency, decreasing specimen size, increasing aspect ratio, and increasing sound absorption coefficient. The glass wool pieces used for this work do not show a significant presence of this effect. As shown in section 5.2, no values of the absorption coefficients ( and ) is greater than 1

7. CONCLUSIONS The results of the measurements are estimative, because it did not meet all the guidelines in the ISO354. However, these results do not differ much with those supplied by the manufacturer, so that the method used in these measurements can be employed if it is not possible to access a reverberant chamber to obtain absorption coefficient values similar to those obtained by standard tests. The main problems of this method are: noise (mainly affects the low-frequency range), the influence of the room (eigenmodes), walls-ceilingfloor absorption (this effects are minimized in a
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reverberant room) and the heterogeneous material employed. 8. REFERENCES [1] ISO-354, Measurement of sound absorption in a reverberation room. [2] Farina, Angelo. Impulse Response Measurements by Exponential Sine Sweeps. Parma, 18 October 2008. [3] ISOVER, Isolation handbook. [4] ASTMC423, Standard Test Method for Sound Absorption and Sound Absorption Coefficients by the Reverberation Room Method. 2002, ASTM International. [5] A. de Bruijn, The edge effect of sound absorbing materials revisited, NAG 2007. [6] Marshal, A. H., Meyer, J. The Directivity and Auditory Impressions of Singers. [7] Ten Wolde, T., Acmtica 18, 207-212,(1967).