07 Koh Swee Leong Alvin

SIM UNIVERSITY
BSc (HONS) IN TECHNOLOGY

TZS402 PROJECT NO: JAN 07/BSHT/06
MODELING OF ACOUSTIC ROOM
SUBMITTED BY ALVIN KOH SWEE LEONG U7513045 SUPERVISED BY MR QIAN JI
TZS402 Ref No. JAN 07/BSHT/06 MODELING OF ACOUSTIC ROOM
ALVIN KOH
SIM University Presentation / Demo Room
ALVIN KOH
ABSTRACT
In this thesis, a small room acoustic is studied for audio and learning applications. Although some scholarly work has been done on the topic, there is still a large body of empirical knowledge and opinion which needs to be addressed. These will be ironed out in the thesis. Such kind of empirical knowledge and opinion on small room acoustic allow for the findings of each individual room acoustic characteristics. The goal of this thesis has been the creation of acoustic room modeling. This consists of three different modeling tasks: the modeling of the room acoustic using calculus spreadsheet with equations, the building method and material involved and the sound testing synthesis. In this thesis, the main emphasis is on the room modeling using calculus spreadsheet equation and sound testing synthesis. Accurate room modeling for the low-frequency range of human hearing was carried out. In this thesis, Sabine, Eyring and Norris Equation are presented. The Eyring and Norris equation have been selected to the accurate room modeling due to the additional randomincidence energy absorption coefficient. The real-time sound testing synthesis has special requirements in terms of computational efficiency. In order to ease up the computational effort of the numerical data, the standard STC contour and its conditions are used to develop an adaptive computational template that refines itself with the upper and lower limits where the recorded data is input. Thus, the level of error is greatly avoided. Furthermore, this applied testing synthesis enables interactive movement of building materials and its environment. Literature review was first carried out on human hearing anatomy and psychoacoustic. This was followed by the selection of suitable software for the development of the measurement tool using Loudspeaker Measurement System (LMS). Literature review also covered the background of hearing properties such as sound pressure level, hearing threshold, frequency response critical bandwidth and masking effects. These provided an overall view of the application of acoustic measurements in this project. Last but not least, the requirements and specification of building acoustic room are discussed. An acoustic experiment was carried out for the measurement on 15th September 2007. The respective results and findings will be analyzed in time and frequency domains to find a correlation with the data from calculus spreadsheet equation.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to express his heartfelt gratitude to Mr Qian Ji for his generous contribution of ideas and advices while doing this project. His unreserved guidance has kept the author on the right track throughout the project. He has enlightened the author the industrial standards of design acoustic processes and introduced the sophisticated world of sound engineering. The author also would like to take this opportunity to extend his warmest appreciation to all the lab technicians of UNI SIM and sound studio room for their invaluable contributions and technical support for the project.
No sound system, no sound product, no acoustic environment can be designed by a calculator. Nor a computer, nor a cardboard slide rule, nor a Ouija board. There are no step-by-step instructions a engineer can follow; thats like Isaac Newton going to the library and asking for a book on gravity. Design work can only be done by designers, each with his own hierarchy of priorities and criteria. His three most important tools are knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Ted Uzzle [1] 4
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Declaration Statement Abstract Acknowledgements Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1. Introduction 1.1. Problem Description 1.2. Objective of Thesis 1.3. Major Contributions in Thesis 1.4. Overview 2. Background 2.1. Introduction to Room Acoustic 2.2. Reverberation time 2.3. Sabine Equation 2.4. Eyring and Norris Equation 2.5. Sound Absorption Materials 2.5.1. Porous Materials 2.5.2. Panel Absorbers 2.5.3. Cavity Resonators 2.6. Conclusion 2 3 4 5 7 10 12 12 13 13 14 15 15 17 17 19 20 20 20 20 20
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3. Literature Review 3.1. Properties of hearing 3.1.1. Thresholds 3.1.2. Masking 3.2. Sound-Absorbing Materials 3.3.Cavity Absorption in Double Construction in SIM presentation room 3.4.Noise Reduction Coefficient 3.5. Sound Transmission Class 4. Project Management 5. Building Acoustic Room 5.1. Sound Attenuation 5.1.1. Airborne Attenuation 5.1.2. Acoustical Shielding 5.1.3. Impact Attenuation 5.1.4. Vibration Isolation 5.1.5. Duct Attenuation 5.2. Design Factors for small room 5.2.1. Bonello Criteria 5.2.2. Precision Listening Room 5.2.3. Rooms for Microphone 5.2.4. Rooms for Entertainment 5.3. Implementation of the design factors 6. Identification of Acoustical Testing and Results Model Introduction 6.1. Instrumentation 6.2. Procedures and methods 6.2.1. Procedure to measurements 6.3. Measurements of the Presentation / Demo Room Wall 6.4.Measurements of the Presentation / Demo Room Doors 6.4.1. First door measurements; D1 is close and D2 is open
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6.4.2. Second door measurements; D1 is open and D2 is close 6.4.3. Lastly: door measurements; D1 is close and D2 is close 6.5. Reverberation in Presentation / Demo room 7. Acoustic Room modeling and Design Optimation Introduction 7.1. Room Modes 7.2. Design Equation and Optimization of modeling 7.3. Measured results vs. Mathematics Theoretical results 7.4. Conclusion 8. Conclusions And Recommendations 8.1. Conclusion 8.2. Recommendations and for Further Research 8.3. Improvements for SIM University Presentation / Demo room 9. Critical Review And Reflections 10. References Appendixes Glossary
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Overview of desired sounds and the control of undesired sounds (noise) in UniSIM auditorium...................16 Threshold of audibility and free field, equal loudness level contour for pure tones with subject facing the source.22 Masking of one pure tone by another. The abscissa is the frequency of the masked tone and the curves are labeled with a particular fixed frequency of the masking tone. The frequency of the masking tone is 400Hz at left side and 2000Hz at right side...23 Sound absorbing characteristics of acoustical materials (from W.J.Cavanaugh, Building Construction: Materials and Types of Construction, 5th ed. By Whitney Huntington and Robert Mickadeit..24 SIM University presentation acoustic room show the constructions where the double layer gypsum board and steel panel system26 The standard shape used in determining the sound transmission class (STC) of a partition..27 Project Management chart....28 The PDCA cycle...30 Sound barrier effectiveness. A good sound barrier should reduce the noise originating in receiving room below the background noise level in source room.34
Figure 4
Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9
Figure 10 Skilled workers sealing the Gypsum Board.35 Figure 11 Skilled workers assemble the fiberglass..36
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Figure 12 top: High deflection spring hanger, Figure 12 bottom: Elastomer floor mount...38 Figure 13 Duct silencers found in SIM University Presentation / Demo Room..39 Figure 14 A ~ D Room for entertainment43 Figure 15 Architectural acoustic Presentation/Demo Room, Control/Observation Room, and Video Recording Studio....45 Figure 16 Post-processing of the data recorded.......47 Figure 17 Presentation room wall detail (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing)...48 Figure 18 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing)......................................................................................49 Figure 19 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room...........................................................................................................49 Figure 20 Binary Math Operation for STC 54 curve...................................................50 Figure 21 Sound lock corridor using 2 doors..............................................................51 Figure 22 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room. (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing).....................................................................................52 Figure 23 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is open.............................52 Figure 24 Binary Math Operation for STC 30 curve when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is open................................................................................................53 Figure 25 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room. (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing).....................................................................................54 Figure 26 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room when door No. 1 is open and door No.2 is close.............................54 Figure 20 Binary Math Operation for STC 30 curve when door No. 1 is open and door No.2 is close...............................................................................................55 Figure 28 Sound lock corridor using 2 doors photo taken from the inside Presentation / Demo room................................................................................................56
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Figure 29 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room. (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing).....................................................................................57 Figure 30 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is close.............................57 Figure 31 Binary Math Operation for STC 46 curve when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is close................................................................................................58 Figure 32 The measured reverberation time at the mid-frequency of 500Hz is 0.31seconds..................................................................................................59 Figure 33 Standing wave..............................................................................................60 Figure 34. Print screen of the Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet I written, showing the dimension of the SIM University (Presentation / Demo Room)..................64 Figure 35 Print screen of the Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet mode frequencies results from figure 34 on SIM University Sound Room (Presentation / Demo Room)...........................................................................................................65 Figure 36 Print screen of the Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet mode distribution results from figure 34 on SIM University Sound Room (Presentation / Demo Room)...........................................................................................................65 Figure 37 Schematic diagram of a double-sealed gasketed door panel (Courtesy of Industrial Acoustic Company, Inc)...............................................................69
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Activities Planning........................................................................................31 Table 2 Illustrates the resources required, the associating budgets, the actual cost and the risk involved for this project...................................................................32
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1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Problem Description The use of modeling in room acoustic and evaluating the acoustic of the newly built multi-purpose demo sound room located in SIM University are discussed in this thesis. How many times did you attend a lecture across the room by a loudspeaker system is never received at a listening position as a correct replica of the original signal? This is the problem encounter by many students in SIM University. This listening condition could be worsening by having the background noise added and the signal is greatly affect by the reflective and reverberant properties of the lecture room. Given all these negative distortions, it is a reduction in the comprehensibility of speech. To ameliorate comprehensibility of speech, lecturers usually adapt their speech to cater the lecture room. These adaptations include; talking slowly in a very reverberant room, talk loudly in a highly absorbent room, when the lecturer has made an announcement over the loudspeaker system, speakers cannot adjust their speech. The result is often an unintelligible announcement. By quantifying the problem above with accurate measurements in a room, the extent to which acoustical treatment is required to solve such problems is known. Typical remedies to improve the clarity of speech include: sound reinforcement in auditoria, reduction of reverberation time in meeting rooms, prevention of echoes in large enclosures, optimization of loudspeaker system and attenuation of background noise. Such presentation room is difficult to locate but fortunately SIM University has just completed building three different acoustic rooms. There are the presentation / demo room, video recording studio and control observation room. Having the authorization to be the first to carry out analyzes tests and studies on the presentation / demo room. This room housed the most acoustic building methods, equipments and materials. Therefore it is a challenge with a concise summation of the conditions for good hearing. This also serves as a future handbook for anyone who wants to use this room for presentations. Acviron Acoustics Consultants Pte Ltd is awarded the contract.
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1.2
Objective of Thesis
Being able to formulate good acoustic parameters for lecture room and presentation / demo room in SIM University, this is mostly not easy to specify what constitutes "good acoustics". Therefore, after having reviewed the problems described above and knowing the difficulties in solving each of them, the main objective of this project are then as follow: a. To perform a comprehensive background study on the characteristics of acoustic room and its theory; to carry out a survey on the recently completion of the SIM University presentation / demo sound room to overcome the difficulties encountered by room acoustic. To design simple analytical room acoustic model software for deriving results such as the standing waves and room resonances modes; to identify the limiting effects and to study the extent of each effect on room resonances modes; to report in detail the various aspects considered for room acoustic design optimization. To develop an efficient method for carrying out the numerical noise measurements on SIM University Sound Studio while maintaining a certain degree of required accuracy; to derive the frequency response of the room from the numerical simulation. To use the recorded frequency response data; to compare with the Sound Transmission Class (STC) contour table, the sum of the deficiencies shall not be greater than 32dB and the maximum deficiency at any single test point shall not exceed 8dB. Major Contributions in Thesis
b.
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1.3
The main tasks of this thesis are to study different methods to achieve the above mentioned objectives. Major contributions from the author include: a. b. The study of notes relating to acoustic by other lecturers to design and optimize the characteristics of modeling room acoustic. The use of excel software, numerical mathematics formula and measuring equipment to develop an adaptive computational grid for the numerical simulation of frequency response curves based on the parameter input. The use of sound meter to analyze acoustical signals. It is designed for easy and quick detailed analysis of the acoustic environment and to model out every source-path-receiver situation in and around the sound studio. The use of recorded frequency response data set the path to find the Sound Transmission Class (STC) value.
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1.4
Overview
Having stated the main objective, this thesis will proceed on to meet each of them in the following manner: a. b. Chapter 2 provides the necessary theoretical background on room acoustic. Chapter 3 studies the properties of hearing in air by understanding different terms of sound attributes based on the levels and directivity gain for different listening environment. Various sounding-absorbing materials and methods are introduce and studied in order to maximize the noise reduction coefficient and sound transmission class level. Chapter 4 discusses on how project management help to make this thesis more efficient with the use of project management chart and the Plan-Do-CheckAct (PDCA) cycle methods. The uses of this new method allow an adaptive systemic approach to be developed. So that a short and smart solution are performed only at significant steps in this project. Chapter 5 using calculus to compute the room mode equation via calculus excels software. Desired responses used by the calculus are obtained from both numerical excel simulation. This calculus transfer function model is related to the room modes, and it is much more difficult to determine. Hence, this calculus could predict optimum room dimensions with the combination of absorption properties of different room surfaces, to which degree these resonance build up. Chapter 6 discusses on a best building methods and materials through the sound attenuation terminology that covers on how the sound is attenuated, what is the materials used, why such building methods is used and images are used for simple empathizing. Chapter 7 and 8 shows the results measured and provides some recommendations for future research into acoustic modeling
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2
BACKGROUND
2.1 Introduction to Room Acoustic The influence of acoustics on the design of modern skyscraper can be observed through the ages from Roman amphitheatres to the modern houses at Palm Tree Island at the coast of Dubai in which we spend our working hours and our leisure. The great difference, however, between life in ancient Rome and life in our crowded modern cities is the presence of noise that is generated from neighbours, traffic and industry. Consequently, the science of building acoustics is no longer limited to the acoustic design of theatres but has increased in scope to cover noise control and abatement in all types of buildings and rooms The extent to which the architecture of building a sound room is determined by acoustical consideration depends on the purpose of the sound room. Building materials found in the sound room affect the acoustic signal that arrives at the ears, both spectrally and temporally and both within spaces and between them, but in most cases the form of the shape of the room is determined by factors other than sound. Acoustics and noise control are then background issues to be dealt with in the choice of functional criteria and the engineering of the fabric of the sound room used. It is only when these considerations become the determinants of the built from that the term architectural takes its design-centered meaning. Such considerations may take precedence either for noise control. Therefore, the acoustical considerations are foreground, in that if they are not correctly included in the design thinking from the start, there may not be a solution available that is not in conflict with the architectural intentions for the space. [2] Correct inclusion implies that the design is based on the realities of the physics of sound and the properties of human hearing and includes quantitative prediction of the sought for outcome at the design stage of the project. Firstly, everything depends upon what the room is intended to be used for. The acoustical requirements are not the same for a concert hall, a theatre or a lecture room, and when the same lecture hall has to be used both for lesson and convocation; some compromises have to be made. Secondly, it depends upon how the acoustics of the room are defined.
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Therefore, building acoustics consideration can be thought of as a system of sources, paths, and receivers of sound. Even the most complex problem can be broken down into one or more sources to be studied along with the paths over which the sound will be transmitted to the eventual receptors of the sound. Whether a source is one, we want to hear or an undesired source e.g. noise, control can be exercised to each element of the system. Figure 1 illustrates than even in a simple lecture auditorium both desired (speech from the lecturer as well as from and between the listeners) and undesired sounds (airconditioning system sound) may be present and must be controlled.
Figure 1 Overview of desired sounds and the control of undesired sounds (noise) in UniSIM auditorium In fact, the concept of "good acoustics" consists of a combination of most of these parameters, objective as well as subjective, considered in a "global" fashion. Therefore, to approach a more global evaluation, it may be necessary to consider several parameters simultaneously, such as amplitude, frequency and time. "Real-time analysis" allows the whole spectrum of a sound signal to be analyzed without corrupting or losing parts of the original signal. The time variations of the spectrum can therefore be studied. Therefore my primary task is to capture frequency response curves of these rooms.
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2.2
Reverberation time
Reverberation time is related to the volume and the total absorption of a room. The relation has been empirically stated by Sabine and gives a good indication of the behaviour of most of the rooms we encounter daily. In this case, it is not suitable for a room with very absorbent boundaries such as an anechoic chamber. 2.3 Sabine Equation
Around the turn of 19th century, Wallace Sabine [3] (1868 1919) arrived at an empirical relation among the reverberation characteristics of a room, its size, and the amount of absorbing material present. The Sabine Equation TV/A (1.0)
Where the reverberation time T of a room, its volume V, and its total sound absorption A. This equation (1.0) is based on a ray model. Sound is assumed to travel outward from the source along the diverging rays. At each encounter with the boundaries of the room, the rays are partially absorbed and reflected. After a large number of reflections the sound in the room is assumed to have become diffuse. In a diffuse sound field, the energy density E is the same throughout the space and all directions of propagation are equally probable. This model oversimplifies the actual behaviour of sound in a room, particularly for lower frequencies and higher absorption, because it requires a large number of reflections before appreciable attenuations accumulates and neglects the existence of standing waves, the distribution of absorptive materials, and the shape of the room. However, with the proper chosen value of A (1.0) leads to valid conclusions. [4] When a source of constant acoustic power output is turned on, the acoustic energy density in the enclosure reaches higher values than would exist if the source were operated in open air. If the source is shut off, reception of sound by the direct path ceases after a time interval t = r / c, where r is the distance from the source to the received and c the speed of sound in air. The reflected waves continue to be received as a succession of arrivals of decreasing intensity. The presence of this reverberant acoustic energy tends to mask the immediate recognition of any new sound until sufficient time has elapsed. Since both loudness and masking increase with longer reverberation times, the choice of the best reverberation time for a particular purpose in an enclosure must strike a balance between these effects.
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Assuming that in a live room a sound source has been turned on long enough to establish a steady-state energy density E and is then turned off at time t = 0. where sound pressure level is seen to reduce with time as SPL = 4.34 t / TE (1.1)
The reverberation time T, defined as the time required for the level of the sound to drop by 60 dB, is T = 13.82 TE = 55.3 V / Ac (1.2)
where V is volume of the room, m3 , A is the absorption of the room, m2 and c is the speed of sound, 343m/s. Sabine reverberation formula, T = 0.161 V / A (1.3)
where 0.161 is an empirical constant, s/m, if the total surface area in the room is S, the average Sabine absorptivity, is defined as =A/S having equation (1.4) to simulate into equation (1.3), it becomes T = 0.161 V / S (1.5) (1.4)
In the equation of (1.5), if the reverberation time T is known, the total sound absorption A and the average Sabine absorptivity can be calculated. However, the goal is to reverse the argument and predict the reverberation time given the acoustic properties of the room. While it is clear that A must be depend on the areas and absorptive properties of all the diverse materials within the room, the form of this dependence is subject to a variety of simplifying assumptions. Sabine assumed that the total sound absorption is the sum of the sound absorptions A n of the individual surfaces, A = An = Sn an (1.6)
where a n is the Sabine absorptivity for the nth surface of area S i . With this assumption, the average Sabine absorptivity is the area-weighted average of the individual absorptivities a n , = 1 Sn an S (1.7)
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2.4
Eyring and Norris Equation
Prior to reverberation times analysis, the same phenomenon was attributed to Eyring [5] and Norris. It is based on the mean free path between reflections. It can be shown [6] that the mean distance traveled by a ray between successive reflections from the walls of a rectangular enclosures is Lm = 4 V / S so the number of reflections per second is N = c S / 4 V (1.9) With each reflection, the sound is reduced in energy by the factor (1- E ), where E is the area-averaged random-incidence energy absorption coefficient, E = 1 S S n a En (1.9) (1.8)
where a En is the random-incidence energy absorption coefficient of the nth surface. The total attenuation of the energy over a time interval of one reverberation time T must therefore be (1- E )NT. [7] This must correspond to a reduction of 60dB in the sound pressure level, so that 10 log (1- E )NT = -60. Solution for T and use of the above expression for N yields the Eyring-Norris reverberation formula, 0.161 V T= - S In(1- E ) (1.10)
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2.5
Sound Absorption Materials
Sound absorbers are important in acoustic design can be broadly classified as (1) porous materials, (2) panel absorbers, and (3) cavity resonators. 2.5.1 Porous Materials
The acoustic tiles and plasters, mineral woods (fiberglass), carpets and draperies are networks for interconnected pores within which viscous losses convert acoustic energy into heat. The absorptivities of such materials are strong functions of frequency, being relatively small at the lower frequencies and increasing to relatively high values above about 500Hz. The absorptivities increase with increasing materials thickness. Low frequency absorption can be increased by mounting the material away from the wall. Painting acoustic plasters and tiles will invariably result in a substantial reduction in effectiveness. [8] 2.5.2 Panel Absorbers
A nonporous panel mounted away from a solid backing vibrates under the influence of an incident sound, and the dissipative mechanisms in the panel convert some of the incident acoustic energy into heat. Such absorbers like; plywood and thin wooden paneling are quite effective at low frequencies. The addition of a porous absorber in the space between the panel and the wall further increase the efficiency of the low frequency absorption. [8] 2.5.3 Cavity Resonators
These consist of a confined volume of air connected to the room by a narrow opening. It acts like a resonator, absorbing acoustic energy most efficiently in a narrow band of frequencies near its resonance. These absorbers may be in the form of individual elements, such as concrete blocks with slotted cavities. Other form consists of perforated panels and wood lattices spaced away from a solid backing with absorption blankets in between. Besides allowing for free architectural expression, these provide useful absorption over a wider frequency range than is possible with individual cavity elements.[8] 2.6 Conclusion
The phenomenon of room acoustic arising from understanding the architectural involvement of a room with sound, this also involves several parameters like dimension of the room, amplitude, frequency and time. Basic equations governing the behaviour of the room acoustic have been reviewed and it was found that the two inherent characteristics of the frequency response measurement are sound transmission class (STC) following the standard of ASTM E336 and RT60 reverberation test.
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3
LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 Properties of hearing The properties of behaviour exhibited by the human aural apparatus are: thresholds of audibility and masking. 3.1.1 Thresholds
The threshold is the minimum perceptible of a tone that can be detected at each frequency over the entire range of the ear. The tone should have duration of about 1second. For tones shorter than about 0.1second the apparent loudness increases with increasing tone duration, very similar to the ear being sensitive to the total energy of the tone burst. For tones longer than a few seconds, a reduction of sensitivity sets in and the apparent strength slowly diminishes with time, corresponding to an apparent decrease in signal level of about 30dB over periods of about 5 minutes. The Figure 2 illustrates the level of contour for threshold of audibility at free field conditions.
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Figure 2 Threshold of audibility and free field, equal loudness level contour for pure tones with subject facing the source. [9] As the intensity of the incident acoustic wave is increased, the sound grows louder and eventually produces a tickling sensation. This occurs at an intensity level of about 120dB and is called the threshold of feeling. As with the lower threshold, it varies somewhat from person to person, but not to so great an extent. As the intensity is increased further, the tickling sensation becomes one of pain at about 140dB.
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3.1.2 Masking This is the increase of the level of audibility in the presence of noise. First consider the masking of one pure tone by another. The subject is exposed to a single tone of fixed frequency and then asked to detect another tone of different frequency and level. Analysis yields the threshold shift, the increase in fixed frequency of the masked tone above its value for the threshold of audibility before it can be detected. Figure 3 gives the representative results for masking frequencies of 400 and 2000 Hz. [10] The frequency ranges over which there is appreciable masking increase with the particular fixed frequency of the masker, the increase being greater for frequencies above that of the masker. The region of the basilar membrane excited into appreciable motion at moderate value of that particular fixed frequency extends from the maximum further toward the stapes than the apex. For stronger excitation of the membrane both regions grow, the region toward the stapes more significantly. It is this region that covers the frequencies higher than that of the masker. This is further explain and demonstrate in the section 5.2.3.
Figure 3 Masking of one pure tone by another. The abscissa is the frequency of the masked tone and the curves are labeled with a particular fixed frequency of the masking tone. The frequency of the masking tone is 400Hz at left side and 2000Hz at right side. [10]
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3.2
Sound-Absorbing Materials
Sound absorbing materials, carpeting, acoustical tiles and other specially fabricated absorbing products can absorb appreciable amounts of sound energy. The sound absorbing efficiency of a material is given by its sound absorption coefficient (). The sound absorption coefficient is a ratio of the incident sound to the reflected sound and may vary from 0 (no absorption or perfect reflection) to 1 (complete absorption or no reflection).
Figure 4 Sound absorbing characteristics of acoustical materials (from W.J.Cavanaugh, Building Construction: Materials and Types of Construction, 5th ed. By Whitney Huntington and Robert Mickadeit. [11]
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Figure 4 shows the typical sound absorbing characteristics of various generic types of sound absorbing materials. Porous materials (e.g. fibrous, interconnecting cellular plastic forms.) account for most of the prefabricated factory fitted products. The overall thickness including any spacing of the material from a backup surface influences the absorption in the low-frequency range. The thicker the porous material and deeper the air space behind the absorbing layer, the higher will be the low-frequency sound absorption coefficients. If the surface facing applied on the porous material for architectural finish reasons influences the high-frequency absorption of the assembly. The more open and acoustically transparent the assembly, the less will be the effect on the mid and high frequency sound absorption coefficients. Sound reflection from the solid areas between the openings, perforations, or fissures of a surface material tends to reduce absorption efficiency of the material at high frequencies. Based on the constructors drawing, we learned and analyzes that method 2 and 5 are used in the construction process of the SIM University Presentation / Demo room. The combination of these two methods should meet the criteria of the school because of its characteristics of sound absorption coefficient. . 3.3 Cavity Absorption in Double Construction in SIM presentation acoustic room
With the full advantages of both mass and complexity have been utilized in double leaf constructions wall, a further improvement in performance can be realized by sound absorbing material within the cavity of the construction. Fibrous, glass or mineral woodtype insulation materials can reduce the sound energy within the cavity volume and thus increase the overall sound energy loss through the construction. The construction in SIM University presentation acoustic room is such that the two sides are extensively coupled together by internal supporting elements, the cavity absorption will have significantly less effect than if the two sides are well isolated from one another by a vacuum chamber. Figure 5 shows the constructions where the double layer gypsum board and steel panel system on widely spaced farming can gain as much as 3 to 5 dB improved sound isolation performance over the same construction without cavity absorption. This cavity absorption also provides a mufflerlike effect to reduce sound transmission at penetrations of a double-leaf construction for electrical conduit where shrinkage crack may develop. [12] The conclusion, whenever maximum sound isolating performance is desired with most double-leaf structures, cavity absorption can contribute to improve results.
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Figure 5 SIM University presentation acoustic room show the constructions where the double layer gypsum board and steel panel system 3.4 Noise Reduction Coefficient
The widely accepted method of describing the average sound absorption characteristics of an acoustical material is the noise reduction coefficient (NRC). The NRC is the arithmetic average of the measured sound absorption coefficients at 250Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz, and 2000Hz test frequencies. An effective sound absorption is achieved when the sound absorption coefficients exceed about 0.4. That means 40% of the incident sound is absorbed and 60% is reflected back into the room. On the other hand, materials having coefficients of 0.8 or greater means 80% absorbed and 20% reflected are considered very effective absorbers. The average NRC values may be considered in the same manner as absorption coefficients at specific frequencies. However, the use of NRC is only restricted to the frequencies range of 250 to 2000Hz. If sound absorption is needed above or below this range, NRC value may not be adequate. 26
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3.5
Sound Transmission Class (STC)
The Sound Transmission Class is used in Chapter 6 for result representation. The noise criterion approach is convenient and valuable because it defines a permissible noise level and spectrum by a single NC number. It is just as convenient and valuable to be able to classify a barrier transmission loss versus frequency curve by a single number. This sound transmission class is a single number method of rating partition, a plot of the data shown in Figure 6 illustrate the values of the standard STC contours. This overlay STC contour curve has two important conditions to fulfill. [13] a) The sum of the deficiencies (mostly is the deviations below the contour) shall not be greater than 32dB. b) The maximum deficiency at any single test point shall not exceed 8dB. It is important to note that the STC is not a field measurement. The actual field STC is often 5dB worse than the laboratory STC rating. Example, if the door in SIM Presentation/demo room rated at STC-50, it can be expected to perform around STC 45 when installed.
Figure 6 The standard shape used in determining the sound transmission class (STC) of a partition.
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4
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project management is essential in this project as it involves developing the project plan, which includes defining the project objectives; skills review, assigning tasks, determining the scope of the project, identifying budget constraint and timelines for completion. It is also covers implementing of project plan with careful controls to ensure the plan is being managed accordingly to schedule and it is illustrated in figure 7
Figure 7 Project Management chart The scope constraint refers to what must be done to produce the projects end result. The budget constraint refers to the money set aside for the project. The time constraint refers to the amount of time available to complete a project; in this case it is one year of hard work or approximate 500 man-hours. The objective of project management is about providing the tools and techniques that enable the project to organize its work to meet these constraints. The skill review knows what skill needed to be learned and what has been taught so that to do this task quicker.
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Scope refers to the requirements specified for the project. This set the definition of what the project is supposed to accomplish, and a specific description of what the end result should be or accomplish. A major component of scope is the quality of the final product. The amount of time put into individual tasks determines the overall quality of the project. Some tasks may require a given amount of time to complete adequately, but given more time could be completed exceptionally. Over the course of a large project, quality can have a significant impact on time and cost (or vice versa). Budget for the project depends on several parameters; these include labor rates, material rates, risk management, plant (buildings, machines, etc.), equipment, and profit. When hiring an independent consultant for a project, cost will typically be determined by the consultant's or firm's per diem rate multiplied by an estimated quantity for completion. In these cases of build the UniSIM sound studio. Time is an essence that one should not miss. It is the one method to identify tasks needed to produce the deliverables documented in a work breakdown structure. The work effort for each task is estimated and those estimates are rolled up into the final deliverable estimate. Objective tasks are also prioritized, dependencies between tasks are identified, and this information is documented in a project schedule. The dependencies between the tasks can affect the length of the overall project (dependency constrained), as can the availability of resources (resource constrained). Time is not considered a cost nor a resource since the planner cannot control the rate at which it is expended. This makes it different from all other resources and cost categories. Skill review is one of the true correct ways of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). It is a continuous improvement tool that was widely acquired in the management of this project. Each task may differ from person to person in the ways of individual writing stylistic preferences, genre-specific differences, subject or department based preferences. Each of these tasks goes through every stage of the cycle shows in Figure 8:
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Figure 8 The PDCA cycle [14] Plan The activities and schedules are defined as shown in table 1 and the Gantt chart (Appendix A-1) respectively. To have the best approach, all the conditions are analyzed and executed accordingly. Do Carry out the activities; the testing methods, observations and results are documented. Check Analysis the information, and compare the obtained results against the expected results from the plan. Act If the results are satisfactory, the case is closed. If the results are not satisfactory, abandon it and take in new changes and run the new cycle again. Or simply repeat the Plan / Do / Check / Act cycle. Note down all revised testing methods and new observations.
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Table 1: Activities Planning No. 1 Task Activities Countless visit to Lee Kong Chian Reference library for Literature Review reading reference books, white papers, journals, handbooks and search the Internet on acoustics, sound, building materials Research and selection of suitable sound measuring equipment and testing software through Internet. Follow by, design and development of software. Initial Report writing Literature Review Design and develop testing software. TMA 01 cutoff date 30 April 2007 Research, selection and purchase the suitable hardware and Literature Review software for the development of the modeling room acoustic through Internet, workshops and reference books from the library. The completion of the SIM University presentation acoustic room was delay so testing could not be carry out. Data reported from literature are reconstructed and assigned equations to approximate dimensions used for analysis. Research and selection of suitable hardware measuring the acoustic room. Follow by design and development of the room mode using excel. Based on research through journals and own analysis. Selecting suitable testing methods for SIM University Presentation / Demo Room. Preliminary acoustic testing with Mr Qian Ji. Arrange acoustic test date with Acviron Acoustics Consultants Pte Ltd, SIM University estate in-charge Mr Cheah Fook Loy, Head of Programme, Electronics & Multimedia Technology Mr Stephen Low. Short attachment to Acviron Acoustics Consultant Pte Ltd for results computation and report writing. Final Report Writing Literature Review Data derivation and logical thinking
Literature Review Design and develop room mode formulation Literature Review
7 8
Preliminary test date: 8 Sep 2007 Test Date: 15 Sep 2007 Attachment on 24 Sep 2007 Report cut off date: 02 Nov 2007
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Table 2 illustrates the resources required, the associating budgets, the actual cost and the risk involved for this project. And Gantt Chart is also include in the Appendix. Task Literature Review Resources Lee Kong Chian Reference Library SIM Technology laboratory, Creative Resource SIM Presentation / Demo Room: Acoustic equipments Block 123 Bukit Merah Lane 1 office Budget $100 for travel cost to library, photocopying. $50 for travel cost to both places $40 Low Cost Risk
$90
Low
LMS program to develop frequency response curves. Experiments on 8th and 15th September 2007
$50 for travel cost to SIM $30 Low
Attachment to Acviron Acoustic Consultant Pte Ltd
$50 for travel cost to Acviron Acoustic Consultant Pte Ltd
$40
Low
Total Cost
$200
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5
BUILDING ACOUSTIC ROOM
Introduction All building materials are in a way acoustical affect the manner in which sound is reflected, absorbed, or transmitted. When sound strike the boundary of a room, is partially reflected, partially absorbed, and partially transmitted to the next room. All these three events are acoustical, yet their effect on the built environment is very different. The first two processes i) reflection and ii) absorption are mutually exclusive, and they both fall in the realm of room acoustics. Using appropriate materials, sound can be reflected or made to absorb. This happens in degrees, as no material is totally reflective nor absorptive. The third process iii) transmission falls under the broad heading of sound isolation. It is not how much sound is reflected or absorbed, but how much of it is allowed to pass through the material of which the walls are made. Having such many terms to define, it behooves us to review the two keys acoustical processes, sound attenuation and sound absorption. There are the basic to an understanding of how materials affect the acoustical environment.
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5.1
Sound Attenuation 5.1.1 Airborne Attenuation
In the left of figure 9 shows the source room, contains noise at 78dB, whose transmission into the other, the right of figure 9 shows the receiving room, and is to be reduced at 28dB. The degree to which this is possible depends mainly on the attenuation offered by the wall between the two rooms. It also depends on flanking paths that may allow sound to bypass the principle barrier. It is understood that to offer the expected attenuation it must be complete in all respects. It must extend across the full height and width of the opening between the two rooms, contain no acoustically inferior such as doors, and no holes or cracks as it may seriously degrade performance. Fig 9 Sound barrier effectiveness. A good sound barrier should reduce the noise originating in receiving room below the background noise level in source room.
To improve the transmission loss on the concrete walls, air space is introduced to it. Such a wall requires specialized and sophisticates equipments to study damping of the individual leaves of the double wall, the coupling of the two leaves by the air cavity and the critical frequencies involved. The materials used are brick and concrete. (Its density approximately 2.1kg/m3 and 2.3kg/m3 respectively) [15] Brick is a modular building block, made of clay. Owning to its considerable mass, brick attenuates airborne sound very well. Exceptionally, high orders of attenuation can be achieved with two side-by-sides but unconnected brick walls. Joints must be fully sealed. Absorption is negligible since there is little or no porosity and the material is rigid. It is a good all-frequency sound reflector.
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Concrete is a mixture of Portland cement, stone and sand combine with water, cured into a hard mass of compressive strength. It is among the best attenuators of airborne sound. It is readily accepts, transmits impact sound and it provides virtually no absorption. 5.1.2 Acoustical Shielding
Acoustical shielding is provided by incomplete barriers for examples, the partial-height partitions often used in open office spaces. Performance is almost always limited by the barriers size. To be at all effective, the barrier must extend well beyond the line of sight between the source and the receiver, and sound must be not being allowed to reflect over or around the barrier. The way of barrier attenuation seldom exceeds 20dB. Most materials found for acoustical shield used gypsum board (Its density approximately 0.8kg/m3) [16] and fiberglass, gypsum board is a fire-resistive sheet material made of calcined gypsum and some additives, sandwiched between sheets of special paper. It is attached to studs, joists or other form of furring when in used. The thick gypsum board partitions can provide a fair amount of sound attenuation. It all depends on the way the construction is detailed. Best results are achieved with multiple layers of gypsum board with resilient separation between the two faces of the partition and with absorptive material in the stud space. It must finish with perfectly sealed illustrate in Figure 10. The gypsum board characteristic is a solid substrate, resonates, absorbs low-frequency sound and reflects high-frequency.
Figure 10 Skilled workers sealing the Gypsum Board 35
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Fiberglass is an excellent sound absorber because the manufacturing process ensures consistent porosity at a very fine scale. Applications on SIM University presentation / demo room include insulation in stud wall and ducts. Compressed blocks or sheets of fiberglass are also used to form resilient supports / hangers see Figure 11. The absorptivity of fiberglass depends on flow resistance, which in turn is affected by the materials thickness, its density, and the diameter of the fibers.
Figure 11 Skilled workers assemble the fiberglass 36
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5.1.3
Impact Attenuation
Impacts are generated by direct, physical contact with a surface whose other side exposed to an adjoining room. Attenuation is achieved by avoiding hard contact and by resiliently separating the floor from the ceiling. Impact noise attenuation of floor and ceilings is rated much like airborne attenuation expect that a tapping machine is placed and operated on the floor, its noise is measured in the room below. And results are being normalized. [17] Acoustical foam is used for SIM University presentation / demo room is made of polyurethane. There are two kinds of foams: i) open cells means air can be blown into and through the material, ii) closed cells means each cells is sealed and airtight. The open cell foams are excellent sound absorbers, provided they are sufficiently thick. The closedcell foams also absorb sound, but less efficiently and less predictably. They are often used in ringing surfaces such as large metal plates. 5.1.4 Vibration Isolation
Vibration isolation pertains specifically to mechanical equipment. There is not a piece of rotating, reciprocating, or vibrating equipment is perfectly balanced. The imbalance causes it as well as its supporting structure to vibrate. Attenuation is achieved through use of vibrator isolators that allow the equipment to float free of the structure. To be effective, the natural frequency of vibration-isolated equipment must be substantially lower than the driving frequency. Special devices are used in SIM University presentation / demo room is resilient hanger and mounts. The resilient hangers look like spring devices designed to support suspended ceilings, suspended pieces of mechanical equipment, air-con ducts and pipes connected to equipment. It is steel springs caged by pieces of elastomeric material. The resilient ceiling hanger characteristics is to improve attenuation and isolate vibration seem in Figure 12. The resilient elastomer floor mounts are equivalent in purpose to resilient hanger. Its role as vibration isolating supports for mechanical equipment, hence the design support of floating floors shown in Figure 12. Double floor consisting of a structural slab and a floating slab offer good sound attenuation.
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Figure 12 top: High deflection spring hanger, Figure 12 bottom: Elastomer floor mount
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5.1.5
Duct Attenuation
Noise from ventilation fans to turbulence in the airstreams, propagates along ducts and enters rooms through the air supply and return grilles. [18] Attenuation is achieved by internally lining the ducts with an absorptive material and by inserting commercially available silencers. Silencers, typically containing fiberglass-packed baffles shown in Figure 13 step 3, absorb sound and thus attenuate duct-borne noise. More lining wrap around the duct the more efficiently it becomes, shown is Figure 13 step 1. The characteristics and performance is fair in the low frequencies, best in the middle frequencies and quite good in the high frequencies. The longer the silencers generally provide more attenuation than those that are shorter.
Figure 13 Duct silencers found in SIM University Presentation / Demo Room
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5.2
DESIGN FACTORS FOR SMALL ROOM
SIM University Presentation / Demo room is acoustically small, it is appropriate to consider this room design in general in this context. We understand that some insist that the room should be as accurate as possible. Others insist that since music is rarely listened to in highly precise analytic rooms, not so sterile, but rather designed so that everything sounds subjectively great. Indeed most recordings are made in rooms that are not close to precision listening rooms. This debate will probably never be resolved as long as there are deductive and inductive reasoners, left-brain and right-brain people, and they are the artists and engineers. Therefore we are trying to set out some simple guidelines. The basic guideline and tools for designing a small room design factors can be divided into three board categories; 1) Precision Listening Rooms 2) Rooms for microphones 3) Room for entertainment We are not trying to imply that there is only one way to build this Presentation / Demo room or an entertainment room. There are different design criteria for different outcomes. The categories presented here are not intended to be exhaustive; rather they are intended to be general and representative to the SIM University sound room. 5.2.1 Bonello Criteria
In 1981 Bonello proposed a criterion for the distribution of normal room mode. The Bonellos number 1 criterion is to plot the number of modes in one-third octave bands against frequency and to examine the resulting plot to see if the curve increases monotonically. This explains that if each of the one-third octaves has more modes than the preceding one or, at least, an equal number. The second scenario explain that if the number 2 criterion is to the modal frequencies to make sure there are no coincident modes, there should be five or more modes in that one-third octave band. [19]
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5.2.2
Precision Listening Rooms
The primary goal is for the listener to have as much confidence as possible that what is heard is precisely what is being or has been recorded. Therefore, users of these rooms are performing tasks that require listening analytically to the program and making decisions, reports and judgments about what is heard. Examples of precision listening room are recording control rooms, mastering suites, and audio production rooms. The state of the art at this writing does not permit us to design electronic circuits that are perfect because of the electronic components tolerances, so as to afford the user 100% confidence that what is heard is equal to what has been or is being recorded. We can, however, design rooms that fully meet this criterion. An anechoic chamber would indeed be 100% natural to the loudspeaker, allowing user to hear precisely and only what is coming out of the speaker. The problem is that anechoic chambers are quite not ideal, as it may be the most acoustically hostile places we can imagine. It is difficult to spend a few minutes in an anechoic chamber let alone try to be creative and make artistic decisions about music in one. The challenge is to build a room that will not significantly interact with the loudspeaker by means of room modes or reflections that arrive at the listening position and still be a place that is subjectively acceptable to the user. The precision listening room design protocols include: a. Choosing a set of room ratios that yield a modal distribution that conforms to Bonello criteria. b. Choosing a symmetrical room shape so that each loudspeaker interacts with the room in exactly the same way. c. Choosing a symmetrical room shape so that each loudspeaker interacts with the room in exactly the same way. d. Choosing and placing acoustical treatment so that the early reflections (at least the first 18ms) are attenuated at and is at least 18dB below the direct sound. Care should be taken to ensure that the treatment chosen exhibits a flat absorption characteristic at the frequency response of interest and at the angles of incidence. The energy time curve should be measured to ensure that the direct sound is not compromised over the entire listening area. [21] e. Placing equipment and furniture in the room in such a way as to not interface with the direct sound. It should be noted that the recording console is often the most significant element in the control room f. Insuring that there are enough live and diffusive surfaces in the room so that the overall subjective feel of the room is that of a normal room and not an anechoic chamber.
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5.2.3
Rooms for microphones
What are the questions relating to the design room that are intended for recording or use with live microphones? The criteria in the recording studios, vocal booths, and even conference rooms are almost all subjective. End users want rooms that sound good and that are comfortable to work in. The acoustician is well advised to work with a good interior decorator as a significant part of what makes someone feel comfortable in. Noise control is a large part of the design criteria and there are a few general rules to follow: a. Like the precision rooms, its will work well if the proportions of the room result in modal distribution that meets the Bonello criteria. b. Unlike the precision room, studios and vocal booths often work best when they are not symmetrical. c. Avoid parallel surfaces if possible. d. Avoid treating entire surfaces with a single form of treatment. E.g. covering a entire wall with an absorber will usually be less effective than treating some areas and leaving some alone. e. Listen carefully to the kinds of words the end user employs to describe the space either in terms of what is desired or in term of something that need modification. i. ii. Words like intimate, close, dark, dead, quiet = The use of absorption. Words like open, live, bright, airy = conjunction with diffusion.[20]
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5.2.4
Room for entertainment
It is much more difficult to set out design criteria for a good sounding room. As with any subjective goal it comes down to the tastes and preferences of the end user. To a great extent how one approaches an entertainment room depends on the type of system to be used, and the type of entertainment envisioned. An audiophile listening room will be treated differently from a home theatre. It should be noted that in the world of home entertainment there exists a very rich audio vocabulary. Spaciousness and localization have the meanings that are consistent with the use of these words in the scientific audio community. And words like air, grain, definition, impact and brittleness are much more ambiguous and are not yet mapped into the physical domain so that we know how to control them. A simple experiment showed how different subjective effects can be created by simply moving acoustic treatment to different locations in a room, the Figure 14 A ~ D. [22]
Figure 14 A
Figure 14 B Figure 14A Figure 14B Good Poor Good Good Good
Figure 14 C Figure 14C Poor Poor Good Good Poor
Figure 14 D Figure 14D Fair Fair Good Fair Good
Localization Non Coloration Loudness Broadening of image Perspective
Good Good Poor Poor Good
a. The home audio and video (AV) entertainment system requires the distribution of room modes is somewhat less important. Having modal support in the low end although inaccurate can result in rooms that sound fuller. b. Absorption should be used sparingly. The rooms should be quiet, not dead. If absorption is to be used, it must be linear.
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c. Remember that everything in a room contributes to the acoustics of the room. Most home will have plush furniture that will be a significant source of absorption. The furnishings should be in place before the final treatment is considered. d. Lateral reflections should be emphasized by using critically placed diffusers. Lateral reflections can dramatically increase the sense of spaciousness in a room. e. Absorptive ceilings trend to create a sense of intimacy and a feeling of being in a small space. If this is not desired, use some absorption to control the very early reflections but leave the rest live. 5.3 Implementation of the design factors
In this chapter, all the key installations are documented, recorded, photographed for future studies. Ordinal, the various design factors of the rooms are studied based on the requirements from the school. The room for entertainment shown in Figure 14B suits the requirements from SIM University. To further improve the practically and the usage of this room, simple transformation are implemented in the side walls of the room. The result was outstanding due to the installation of special acoustic panels on the side walls of the room. These acoustic panels have two distinct surfaces. One of its is cover with medium velour fabric with a sound absorption coefficients of 0.75 at 1KHz frequency and the other is finished with smooth and clean plywood paneling about 15mm thick, with a sound absorption coefficients of 0.09 at 1KHz frequency. The reason to have these two extremely different coefficients is to cater for precision listening room and microphones recording. The result a multi-purpose presentation / demo room is cleverly created.
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6
IDENTIFICATION OF ACOUSTIC TESTING AND RESULTS MODEL
6 Introduction This thesis is reporting the results of acoustic door and wall sound insulation test, air conditioning noise level measurements, room reverberation time measurements and Sabines description of the relation of sound decay to intelligibility of speech is profound in its simplicity by reading aloud a short paragraph of words. The acoustic tests were conducted at variety locations found in Figure 15. They are i) Presentation/Demo Room, ii) Control/Observation Room, and iii) Video Recording Studio.
Figure 15 Architectural acoustic Presentation/Demo Room, Control/Observation Room, and Video Recording Studio. 45
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6.1
Instrumentation for Sound Insulation Tests and Reverberation Time Measurements Neutrik Minirator MR1, Analog Audio Signal Generator E-MU PM5 High precision monitor NTI Acoustilyzer Type AL1
Sound Source Speaker Sound Level Meter 6.2
Procedure and methods
Having mentioned so much about the background of acoustic and its terms, we need to established a method by which sound decay could be measured now, Sabine made measurements in a wide variety of other spaces, some of these theories are to ensure that conclusions were applicable to space other than the UniSIM lecture room and some spaces that were ideally suited for specific measurements. These methods of testing and measuring its; The duration of audibility of the residual sound is near the same in all parts of an auditorium. The duration of audibility is nearly independent of the position of the source. The efficiency of an absorbent in reducing the duration of the residual sound is, under ordinary circumstances, nearly independent of its position. Applicability of the reverberation equation regardless of room size, two different of rooms are measured e.g. a class room (65 metre3) and a auditorium (3000 metre3).
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6.2.1
Procedure to measurements
To begin the measurements for the SIM University presentation / demo room under test is injected with a pink noise signal through speakers. The sound source has to be active until balance between injected and absorbed acoustical energy has been reached. Then the source signal has to be stopped. The NTI acoustilyzer AL1 recognizes this interruption, triggers, the decay time is measured and the RT60 test result are automatically calculated. The RT60 result is shown in Figure 32. Figure 16 show the procedure how measurements are recorded, compute and analyze.
Figure 16 Post-processing of the data recorded.
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6.3
Measurements of the Presentation / Demo Room Wall
The wall illustrates in figure 17 shows that the acoustic partitions walls are complex entities. It exhibit different degrees of isolation in different segments of the spectrum. It is therefore imperative that we know what frequencies are isolating. The more massive the wall and the more highly damped the material, the fewer problems introduced by diaphragmatic resonance.
Figure 17 Presentation room wall detail (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing)
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The location of the measured transmission loss is at
Figure 18 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing) The measured frequency respond at the location is
Figure 19 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room
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The result of the measurements is
Figure 20 Binary Math Operation for STC 54 curve Conclusion on the Presentation / Demo Room Wall The goal is to build a wall with the specific criteria of STC 60. The noise test indicates a noise level and spectrum as shown in Figure 19. The frequency respond of outside presentation / demo room is subtracted from the frequency respond of inside presentation / demo room; this will indicate the raw data that indicates the amount of loss needed to achieve the desired goal of STC 60. Figure 20 illustrated that the standard STC template is laid over the frequency respond curve and the needed STC is read opposite the 500Hz mark at 54dB. Hence, this goal is not meet. The result above shows that by adding layers of gypsum wallboard increase STC, and increase stiffness which tends to shift the coincidence dip to a lower frequency.
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6.4
Measurements of the Presentation / Demo Room Doors
Every part of an acoustical door is important to its performance. Special metal acoustical doors are available with special cores, heavy hinges, means of sealing, and latching hardware. There are two design elements required in considering what kind of door to utilize. There is the transmission loss of the door itself and there is the sealing system. The use of a sound lock corridor principle places two widely spaced doors in parallel, relieving the acoustical requirement of each. This sealing system is found at the SIM University presentation / demo room illustrates in Figure 21. Whatever system is used, it must hold up over time and withstand wear and tear of use. We found that doors and their seals are difficult to build and often the weak point of sound room. The procedure to carry out the measurements for the two doors involved three sets of frequency responses. The first and second sets of measurements address door No.1 and 2 closed separately respectively. And lastly it covers both doors closed together.
Figure 21 Sound lock corridor using 2 doors.
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6.4.1
First door measurements; Door No. 1 is close and Door No.2 is open.
The location of the measured transmission loss when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is open at
Figure 22 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room. (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing) The measured frequency respond when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is open at
Figure 23 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is open.
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Figure 24 Binary Math Operation for STC 30 curve when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is open. Conclusion on the Presentation / Demo Room Door No.1 (close), Door No.2 (open) The goal is to build a door number 1 with the specific criteria of STC 45. The noise test indicates a noise level and spectrum as shown in Figure 23. The frequency respond of outside presentation / demo room is subtracted from the frequency respond of inside presentation / demo room; this will indicate the raw data that indicates the amount of loss needed to achieve the desired goal of STC 45. Figure 24 illustrated that the standard STC template is laid over the frequency respond curve and the needed STC is read opposite the 500Hz mark at 30dB. Hence, this goal is not meet. The result shown in Figure 24 tells us that there are high frequency leakages from 1 KHz and above.
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6.4.2
Second door measurements; Door No. 1 is open and Door No.2 is close.
The location of the measured transmission loss when door No. 1 is open and door No.2 is close at
Figure 25 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room. (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing) The measured frequencies respond when door No. 1 is open and door No.2 is close at
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Figure 26 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room when door No. 1 is open and door No.2 is close. The result of the measurements is
Figure 20 Binary Math Operation for STC 30 curve when door No. 1 is open and door No.2 is close. Conclusion on the Presentation / Demo Room Door No.1 (open), Door No.2 (close) The goal is to build a door number 2 with the specific criteria of STC 45. The noise test indicates a noise level and spectrum as shown in Figure 26. The frequency respond of outside presentation / demo room is subtracted from the frequency respond of inside presentation / demo room; this will indicate the raw data that indicates the amount of loss needed to achieve the desired goal of STC 45. Figure 27 illustrated that the standard STC template is laid over the frequency respond curve and the needed STC is read opposite the 500Hz mark at 25dB. This shows noise leaks through the door seals.
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6.4.3
Lastly: door measurements; Door No. 1 is close and Door No.2 is close.
Nevertheless, for doors separated as they are in the case of a sound lock show in Figure 28, the decibels transmission loss of one door comes close to adding arithmetically to the decibels loss of the other door. Two doors well separated approach doubling the effect of one.
Figure 28 Sound lock corridor using 2 doors photo taken from the inside Presentation / Demo room.
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The location of the measured transmission loss when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is close at
Figure 29 Drawing of the Presentation / Demo Room. (scan from the main contractor floor plan drawing) The measured frequency respond when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is close at
Figure 30 Noise level and spectrum of outside and inside the Presentation / Demo Room when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is close.
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Figure 31 Binary Math Operation for STC 46 curve when door No. 1 is close and door No.2 is close. Conclusion on the Presentation / Demo Room Door No.1 (close), Door No.2 (close) The goal is to build a door number 1 with the specific criteria of STC 55. The noise test indicates a noise level and spectrum as shown in Figure 30. The frequency respond of outside presentation / demo room is subtracted from the frequency respond of inside presentation / demo room; this will indicate the raw data that indicates the amount of loss needed to achieve the desired goal of STC 55. Figure 31 illustrated that the standard STC template is laid over the frequency respond curve and the needed STC is read opposite the 500Hz mark at 46dB. This shows noise leaks through the door seals. The noise leaks are pondered on Figure31. It shows dips over the range of 800 to 3150Hz. These are high frequency leakage that is caused by the gap found on the door seals and this seal also did not mesh its each other rubber surfaces together when the doors are closed. During conducting the sound test measurement, a simple experiment was carried out. A plain piece of A4 paper was placed at both end of the doorframe length when the door is wide open. Then the door No.1 is securely closed. By using our hand, we tried to pull the paper from inside the room. And the result; was the top end of the door, paper was being pull out effortless. The bottom end of the door, paper was crooked and more force is needed to put out the paper. This results shows that there are relative significance of any direct high frequency sound leakage through the door seals. This simple test was carried out to the two doors located at the presentation / demo room. The door No.2 located
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inside the room show the worst result; the top end of the door has the largest gap among the four tests carried out.
6.5
Reverberation in Presentation / Demo room
Reverberation time RT60 is the time required for the sound pressure level to decrease 60 dB after the sound stimulus signal is stopped. Since ambient noise often defeats measurements of 60dB level decrease in practice, the RT60 results are based on T20 measurements. This requires only a 35 dB level decrease within each octave band. The RT60 test result is the extrapolation of the measured 20 dB decay. Therefore, a gated pink noise signal is used as test signal. During the measurements, the presentation / demo room under test is injected with a pink noise signal through speakers. These sound sources have to be active until balance between injected and absorbed acoustical energy has been reached. The setup is, the signal generator (NTI Minirator) was connected to a power loudspeaker by RCA cable, this is to facilitate the ease of physically interrupted the signal so that to create that interruption.
Figure 32 The measured reverberation time at the mid-frequency of 500Hz is 0.31seconds.
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7
ACOUSTIC ROOM MODELING AND DESIGN OPTIMIZATION
7 Introduction to Acoustic Room Modeling The use of room modes modeling for acoustic room covers the concepts of noise control in architectural acoustics. The modeling calculations are applied for a given architectural floor plan shows in Figure 15. The layout was chosen so that it includes the basic concepts of the calculations of room modes in architectural spaces. Room modes can be identified by peaks and dips in the frequency response of the acoustic transfer function between speaker and listening position. At frequencies less than 150Hz, its density is not too high and it is difficult to interpret as to their audible effect. Listening to a multi-burst test signal at different frequencies gives audible indication to variety parts of the room locations and it also indicated the frequency regions suffer the greatest degradation in the articulation of bass sounds. Such information is useful to identify and electronically equalize the worst offenders in the acoustic transfer function response. 7.1 Room Modes
A mode is a phenomenon that occurs whenever sound travels between two reflecting surfaces where the distance between the surfaces is such that the impinging waves reflects back on itself creating a standing wave. The distribution of modes determines the low frequency performance of a small room. Imagine a sound source S emitting a sinusoidal signal between two isolated reflecting surfaces shown in Figure 33. When the equation 2.0 takes place in a room, a standing-wave condition is set up. 7.2
Figure 33 Standing wave igure
Design Equations and Optimization of Modeling
In the design calculations for the presentation / demo acoustic room, sets of equations are developed with the aid of Microsoft excel software. Despite that, the intention is not to predict optimum speaker placement or listener position because this would need to
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calculate the transfer function between speaker and listener. Therefore, the transfer function is related to the room modes and it would be much more difficult to determine. Never-the-less, room modes calculations will ensure an optimal value for the room dimensions without having to take into account any specifies about speaker placement, source directivity and source type (e.g. monopole and dipole) that determine which modes are excited, and in combinations with the absorption properties of different room surfaces, to which degree these resonances build up. The implementation of the room modes modeling is quite traditional and follows the Sabine Equation and Eyring and Norris Equation presented earlier in section 1.5 and section 1.10 respectively. However, there are some enhancements to achieve a better performance level. Kicking off this kind of modeling, we need to start the testing with very low frequency; these frequencies of the oscillator driving the source are slowly increased. Standing-Wave Equation; f o = (331 + 0.6 t ) / 2 L where t is the temperature in degree Celsius where L is the length in meters (2.0)
When the frequency, f o is reach based on the equation, a so called standing wave condition is set up. Some factors needed to be consider; air particle velocity must be zero at the wall surface but whenever particle velocity is zero, pressure is at maximum level. The wave is reflected back out of polarity with itself, that is to say that the reflection is delayed by a period of time. This results in a cancellation that will occur exactly midpoint between the reflecting surfaces; these could only happen when all the walls have identical dimension and properties. If the walls are not perfect reflectors, losses at the wall will affect the heights of the maxima and depth of the minima. This effect can be readily verified with a sound level meter which shows maximum sound pressures near the walls and a distinct null midway between the walls. Hence if this excitation is applied as a step function, then the sound pressure will rise from 10% to 90% of its steady-state level within a time T rise = 0.7 / BW (2.1) where BW is the width of the resonance curve in Hz at the half power (-3 dB) level. The SPL will decay to one millionth (-60 dB) of its full level after a time T 60 = 2.2 / BW (2.2) In the room modes modeling, the number of modes N between zero and a given upper frequency limit f m can be estimated [8] from N = (4 p / 3) V (f m /c)3 + (p / 4) S (f m /c)2 + (1 / 8) L e (f m /c) (2.3)
where the acoustics rooms dimensions are noted down to the centimeters accuracy.
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Volume, V = L W H
[m3] [m2]
(2.4) (2.5) (2.6)
Surface area, S = 2 ( L W + L H + W H ) Perimeter edge P e = 4 ( L + W + H ) [m]
The number of modes increases very rapidly with frequency and they move ever more closely together. Their average separation at f m is df = c3 / ( 4 p V f m 2 ) [Hz] (2.7)
If we assume that the modes in this room decay at T 60 = 500 ms, then each resonance occupies a 3 dB bandwidth BW = 4.4 Hz from equation (2.2) above. Somewhere between 100 Hz and 200 Hz the average separation df between modes is 2.32 Hz and thus 2 modes fall within the 4.4 Hz bandwidth resulting from T 60 . This occurs at fs = 157 Hz as calculated from the simple formula for 2 overlapping modes per BW: f s = 2000 ( T 60 / V )1/2 [Hz] (2.8)
The frequency f s is also called the Schroeder frequency and denotes approximately the boundary between reverberant room behavior and discrete room modes. The room response takes time to build up the reverberant sound field in a room. Combining the expressions for rise time equation (2.1) and T 60 equation (2.2) we obtain T rise = 0.32 T 60 [s] (2.9)
You can think of T rise as the time constant of the room. If music or speech varies faster than the time constant, then the room will not respond fully and you hear predominantly the direct sound from the speaker. For 500 ms reverberation time and 160 ms rise time this covers modulation envelopes of a sound down to 1/160ms = 6.25 Hz.
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7.3
Measured results vs. Mathematics Theoretical results
The calculated reverberation time T60 using spreadsheet shown in Figure 34 discussed the actual dimension of the Presentation / Demo room that was used to analyze the three hypothetical rooms and to gain some general insights. These insights are the comparison of the measured results vs. the mathematics theoretical results; both results are averagely corresponding to each other illustrated in Figure 32 and Figure 34 respectively. Depending upon the presentation / demo room structure rigidity, their wall surface textures, floors, floor coverings and object in different locations; it has its own unique acoustic signature. In Figure 35, it is showing the mode frequencies of the Presentation / Demo Room. The graphs show the horizontal plane (modes in ascending frequency) found in the graphs show to value 76. The values 76 represent a chain of modal frequencies found in the room. These modal frequencies are from 0, 0, 0 to 2, 4, 0 and every mode is described by three digits. Calculations are performing on every mode and tabular out into graph. The analytics conclusions tell us that the modes determined the actual rate of decay and the absorptive characteristics of whatever surfaces are used in the presentation / demo room. My estimated of the average wall absorption is approximately 30% based on the materials used and the surface area calculated throughout the interior of the presentation / demo room. The frequency curve is gradually increasing with the ascending modes number because of easy of referral purpose to the individual room mode number includes in the appendixes. In Figure 36, it is showing the mode distribution of the Presentation / Demo Room. The peaks and dips tell the differences in Hertz between each incremental room modes. This given us important information all three sets of surfaces are supporting one and another and there are no instances where all three dimensions (e.g. length, width and height) support the same frequency. The presentation /demo room show a good distribution of modes across the spectrum. Refer to Figure 36, there are a few where the differences between the mode is quite small, there are number 28, 29 and 30; the modes are (5,0,0), (4,2,0) and (2,3,0); the differences are 6.07, 6.67 and 6.11 respectively. These distributions of modes are small but if we could practice this calculation in the first place we could prevent and deal with it.
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Figure 34. Print screen of the Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet I written, showing the dimension of the SIM University Sound Room (Presentation / Demo Room).
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Figure 35 Print screen of the Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet mode frequencies results from figure 34 on SIM University Sound Room (Presentation / Demo Room).
Figure 36 Print screen of the Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet mode distribution results from figure 34 on SIM University Sound Room (Presentation / Demo Room).
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7.4
Conclusion
In this chapter, various practical cases of the room modeling response time is large compared to the time it takes a reflected sound to reach the listener and therefore reflections will not be masked by the reverberant field. Depending upon the directivity of the source and the proximity of reflecting surfaces and objects specific absorptive or diffusive treatment may become necessary. It should not be overdone, though, because a certain amount of lateral reflection is subjectively desirable to not destroy the impression of a real space. A reasonable model distribution should be taken into consideration when design or planning an acoustic room. One should avoid whole number ratios and avoid common dimensions that have common factors in the acoustic room.
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8
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
8.1 Conclusion Key elements of Sabines success were its ability to arrive at firm conclusions and to translate its findings in clear, precise terms that could be easily understood by people with a limited technical background. That why this thesis investigates the methodologies for the development and construction of SIM University Presentation / Demo room and to develop calculus spreadsheet for different room modes. As the intent of this thesis is to aid the future user of this sound room how the room react with their purpose and by changing some acoustical tile to cater to their needs. It is designed to be ease of use and user-friendly for all. The use of calculus equations to model the SIM University Presentation / Demo room modes is discuss in chapter 5 and involves a series of mathematic equations. Desired responses used by the adaptation are obtained from both numerical simulation and actual sound room measurements. Based on the calculus equation results, there is a good agreement between them. By measuring the dimensions of the room and knowing the wall absorptions materials we could sow a more precise reverberation time. In chapter 6, shows characteristics of key materials used to build the presentation / demo room. Sound is either reflected, or absorbed, or transmitted through any matter of medium when it strikes the boundary of the room. These characteristics are feature in its general term and explained with the aid of the SIM University sound room which is under construction. Case studies had been examined to ensure that the design factors stays within the bandwidth of the original STC criterion. And it can faithfully reproduce its requirement. Performance improvement on the change of walls will increase its efficiency to be a multi-purpose presentation / demo sound room. In chapter 7, a gated pink-noise test on the SIM University presentation / demo room is carrying out. The method takes advantage obtaining single figure indices or frequency response from the airborne and impact sound insulation curves measured according to ISO 140. This ensures that the sound insulation is a function of frequency and that most regulations specifying the sound insulation between dwellings require an evaluation of the measurement result by comparison to references curve Conclusion on the Presentation / Demo Room Door No.1 (open), Door No.2 (close) es covering the frequency range of 125 to 4000Hz.
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8.2
Recommendations and for Further Research
Due to shortage of time since the completion of the sound room, the testing and measurement for the presentation / demo room is carried out successfully. For future work, a number of sight and sound test must be carrying out on a group of participants. The intention is to gather as much information on how oneself perceptive the acoustic environments. And simulate a similar measurement protocol as literature review. The operation of RT-60; reverberation time decay curves of a sound produced in the room may be represented as a three-dimensional amplitude-frequency-time landscape by using a real-time analyzer in conjunction with a computer and printer. Given the opportune of the start and stop signal that translate from sound to silence, it can be started and stopped automatically by the computer , then a large number of reverberation decays can be measured and averaged to produce a final decay curve for each frequency band of interest. An interview may be carried out with the acoustic consultant to understand their requirements of an acoustic modeling room, so that the developed software will able to contribute to ease of their measurement and improve the strength of their work. 8.3 Improvements for SIM University Presentation / Demo room
Following on the work done and the measurements recorded during the testing in the room, the results measured show that it did not meet the specified criteria set by the Acoustic consultant and SIM University staff. There are relative significant sound leakages through the completed construction. The hidden sound leaks can occur in spite of even the best field supervision of the installation. Hence, after numerical testing and measurements of the acoustic room, we conclude that there are leakages found around the edges of the door. And the gasket between the door and the door frame did not prevent air leaks. The sole purpose of acoustical gaskets is to eliminate air leaks, and thus maximize attenuation. A perfect fit is essential if the attenuation capabilities of the door panel are to be fully realized. I would recommend the school to look into changing the double-sealed gasketed door panel illustrates in Figure 35.
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Figure 37 Schematic diagram of a double-sealed gasketed door panel (Courtesy of Industrial Acoustic Company, Inc)
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9
CRITICAL REVIEW AND REFLECTIONS
At the start of the project, I had an unclear project objective that covered a very wide area of interest. Armed with no background in architectural acoustic field to carry out case study on modeling; testing and recommendation for the pre-construction stages of the SIM University Sound Room, I was faced with a task which was both demanding and provocative. The initial stage of the project was very inured and difficult, as I had vague ideas on how I was going to set my objective, although I knew that substantial reading is required to begin this project. Furthermore, Dr Bi Guo An from the T & E Board mention that Please let the student to know that he need to be more focused some specific performance or the performance of a subsystem in this project. This statement had wakened me to concentrate on one such specific area. The initial meeting with my tutor was fruitful as we had tied down a list of areas to research in. These consist of acoustical material and method, acoustical noise control, architectural acoustics principles and practice, concrete construction, fundamentals of acoustic, psychoacoustics, reverberation in room and software system design and integration. A drafted Gantt chart was used for the project plan. It stated all the tasks and activities which needed to be done, hence making this project a successful one. Among the general skills I took on in this thesis report are the abilities to apace search for related materials both in hardcopy and softcopy formats. Besides this, rapid-reading to capture the key crucial points from the huge pools of researched information, and the strict self-discipline to follow the Gantt chart schedules further hone my research expertise. Literature research was performed on the Internet (e.g. Yahoo), SIM Library services and National Library services. Unfortunately, the search results concluded that the materials are either irrelevant or too extrapolate and most of the crucial topics and areas I needed were published in white papers and I have to pay for it. From the help of my project tutor, friends in NUS, NTU, Bruel & Kjaer Singapore, Acviron Acoustics Consultant, I managed to get useful technical links, books and magazine to find essential literature relating to my project. Lastly, I also went to Lee Kong Chian Reference Library to search for more literature to further strengthen my project.
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During the project proposal and approval stage, the objective was to develop the education acoustics learning kit for amateur music appreciators and students. There was a need to analyze the system with FFT tools from the system level and also include the critical components in pre-amplifier. Comparing the performance of the system in different environments e.g. UniSIM Sound studio (enclosed space) and an empty study room was yet another critical component. Studying the effectiveness of the sound studio characteristics (e.g. room size, room composition, location of sound source and receiver) on the performance of the system wraps up the objectives at this stage. After reviewing my project proposal and approval by Dr Bu Guo An and Mr Qian Ji, I decided to set my goal on the performance of the system in different environments and study the effectiveness of the sound studio characteristics. Therefore I went to look for suitable sound room to carry out my tests, but the results were not forthcoming. Collectively, I would need to search for suitable acoustic measurement equipments to meet the requirements. Meanwhile, there is still no news in the searching for sound studio, Mr. Stephen Low offers me a great opportunity to carry out my acoustic testing in our newly built sound studio. I showed great interest in this research work with preference on continuum with the traditional qualitative observation. From here, the project proceeded with no further change of objective since the substantial studies carried out are quantitative measurement of pathologies. The initial chosen testing equipments consist of: 1) Intel Laptop, 2) Creative E-MU 1616M Laptop Digital Audio System, 3) Brel & Kjr Type 4189 1/2" Free-field microphone, 4) E-MU PM5 high precision monitor and 6) NTI minirator MR1 Analog Audio Signal Generator. These testing equipments were used to conduct sound test accordance to ASTM E336 Standard Test Method for measurement of airborne sound insulation in building. Being a novice in conducting the ASTM E336 test, making progress on the development of sound insulation test was not easy. Problems were encountered when the data were obtained. Low frequency tends to have higher reading when compare with the rest of the bandwidth; hence the problem lies from the fan noise in the laptop causing error in the measurements. These initial testing equipments were not accurate and hence not feasible. The final chosen testing equipments were fewer when compare to the initial equipments. It consisted of: 1) E-MU PM5 high precision monitor, 2) NTI minirator MR1 Analog Audio Signal Generator and 3) NTI Acoustilyzer AL1 with Minilyzer ML1 (1/2, omnidirectional, pre-polarized condenser, free field transducer). This final setup could produce results that are fast and accurate with portable instruments. During measurements, the sound source was generated with pink noise signal using NTI minirator MR1, amplified and delivered through the speakers using E-MU PM5 high precision monitor. The sound levels inside and outside the room were measured at 1.5m from the walls and 1.5m above the floor using the sound level meter that happened to be the NTI Acoustilyzer AL1 with Minilyzer ML1. All levels were measured in 1/3-octave bands from 125Hz to 4 kHz.
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A great allocation of time was spent on the testing and experiments for the measurement of the SIM University presentation / demo room on the STC and the RT-60. At the initial stage, due to late completion date of the SIM University sound room, I went on to test another study room in the SIM University. However, this study room was not acoustical treated, therefore single testing was not feasible hence the average results will need to be collected after several rounds of testing. Comparison of these average results with the calculus spreadsheet equation model is discussed qualitatively. Precious time was wasted due to insufficient thought, unfamiliarly of the equipments and unforeseen circumstances. In conclusion, I have spent much time in literature research and review, focusing in the understanding of most of the formulae like Sabine and Eyring and Norris equations and its applications using Microsoft spreadsheet, hence giving the minimum care to planning and time apportioning. As a result, I have to redefine the project plan in Gantt chart during the progress of the project work as some tasks may be more dawning and a longer period of time need to be scheduled in. The sound room measurements took about four months to complete where the initial plan for it was for only a month. Likewise, the evaluation of design & model test measurement analysis had extend to four months from the initial plan of one month since much time was spent on deducing and seeking for suitable logical data and case study from literature for system testing and modeling. The modeling design and development of the SIM University presentation / demo room acoustic tests failed to meet the specified acoustic requirements due to the door seals not being in firm contact with the door panels when both doors are closed.
Total number of words: 13755 (exclude appendix, reference, glossary, list of figure)
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10
REFERENCES
1. T.Uzzle, A Manufacturers field support via the programmable scientific calculator, presented at the 72nd convention of the Audio Engineering Society, Anaheim, CA, October 1982, preprint 1943. 2. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Basic Concepts, Architectural acoustics : Principles and Practice, pp02, 1999. 3. Sabine, collected Papers on Acoustics, Harvard University Press (1922); republished, Acoustical Society of America (1993). 4. Lawrence E.Kinsler, Austin R.Frey, Alan B.Coppens and James V.Sanders, Architectural Acoustics, Fundamentals of Acoustics 4th edition, pp333 334, 2000. 5. Eyring, J.Acoust. Soc. Am, 1, 217 (1930). 6. Bate and Pillow, Proc. Phys. Soc., 59, 535 (1947). 7. Lawrence E.Kinsler, Austin R.Frey, Alan B.Coppens and James V.Sanders, Architectural Acoustics, Fundamentals of Acoustics 4th edition, pp339, 2000. 8. Lawrence E.Kinsler, Austin R.Frey, Alan B.Coppens and James V.Sanders, Architectural Acoustics, Fundamentals of Acoustics 4th edition, pp340, 2000. 9. Lawrence E.Kinsler, Austin R.Frey, Alan B.Coppens and James V.Sanders, Architectural Acoustics, Fundamentals of Acoustics 4th edition, pp326, 2000.
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10. Lawrence E.Kinsler, Austin R.Frey, Alan B.Coppens and James V.Sanders, Architectural Acoustics, Fundamentals of Acoustics 4th edition, pp326, 2000. 11. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Basic Concepts, Architectural acoustics: Principles and Practice, pp19, 1999. 12. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Basic Concepts, Architectural acoustics: Principles and Practice, pp25, 1999. 13. Everest F. Alton (Frederick Alton), Acoustical Noise Control, The master handbook of acoustics, pp 49, 2001. 14. PDCA cycle http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ogehome/CQI/PDCA.html. 15. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Common Building Materials, Architectural acoustics: Principles and Practice, pp63, 1999. 16. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Common Building Materials, Architectural acoustics: Principles and Practice, pp64, 1999. 17. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Acoustical Materials and Methods, Architectural acoustics: Principles and Practice, pp58, 1999. 18. William J. Cavanaugh and Joseph A. Wilkes, Sound Absorption, Architectural acoustics: Principles and Practice, pp59, 1999. 19. Everest F. Alton (Frederick Alton), Small Room Acoustics, The master handbook of acoustics, pp 96, 2001. 20. Don Davis and Chips Davis, The concept for the control of acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters in recording studio control rooms. Journal of AES, vol 28, #9 Sept. pp585, 595, 1980. 21. The RFZ/RPG Approach to control room monitoring. 76 AES Convention, NY 1984, reprint 2157. 22. Kishinaga, Shimizu, Audo and Yamaguchi, On the room Acoustic design of listening rooms, Audio Engineering Society 64th Convention (Nov 1979) preprint #1524.
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APPENDIXES 1A: The calculations of the room modes for the Presentation/Demo Room
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APPENDIXES 1B: The calculations of the room modes for the Presentation/Demo Room
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APPENDIXES 1C: The calculations of the room modes for the Presentation/Demo Room
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APPENDIXES 1D: The calculations of the room modes for the Presentation/Demo Room
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APPENDIXES 2: Gantt Chart
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Glossary Absorption In acoustics, the changing of sound energy to heat. The fraction of sound energy that is absorbed at any surface. It has a value between 0 and 1 and varies with the frequency and angle of incidence of the sound. AES Audio Engineering Society. A room designed to suppress internal sound reflections. Used for acoustical measurements. Distortion Any change in the waveform or harmonic content of an original signal as it passes through a device. The result of nonlinearity within the device. Equal loudness contour A contour representing a constant loudness for all audible frequencies. The contour having a sound pressure level of 40 dB at 1000 Hz is arbitrarily defined as the 40-phon contour. Frequency response The changes in the sensitivity of a circuit or device with frequency. Image source A loudspeaker located at an image point. Monitor Pink noise Loudspeaker used in the control room of a recording studio. A noise signal whose spectrum level decrease at a 3-dB per octave rate. This gives the noise energy per octave. Resonance A resonant system vibrates at maximum amplitude when tuned to its natural frequency. Reverberation time The time required for the sound in an enclosure to decay 60dB. Sabine The originator of the Sabine reverberation equation. The practical unit between 0 and 1 expressing the absorbing efficiency of a material. It is determined experimentally. Sound power level A power expressed in dB above the standard reference level of 1 Pico watt. Sound pressure level A sound pressure expressed in dB above the standard sound pressure of 20 micropascals. Timbre The quality of a sound related to its harmonic structure.
Absorption coefficient
Anechoic chamber
Sound absorption coefficient
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SIM UNIVERSITY

BSc (HONS) IN TECHNOLOGY

MODELING OF ACOUSTIC ROOM

SUBMITTED BY ALVIN KOH SWEE LEONG U7513045 SUPERVISED BY MR QIAN JI

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SIM University Presentation / Demo Room

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Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9

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Eyring and Norris Equation

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Sound Absorption Materials

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Sound Transmission Class (STC)

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$50 for travel cost to SIM $30 Low

Attachment to Acviron Acoustic Consultant Pte Ltd

$50 for travel cost to Acviron Acoustic Consultant Pte Ltd

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Sound Attenuation 5.1.1 Airborne Attenuation

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Figure 10 Skilled workers sealing the Gypsum Board 35

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Figure 11 Skilled workers assemble the fiberglass 36

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Figure 13 Duct silencers found in SIM University Presentation / Demo Room

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DESIGN FACTORS FOR SMALL ROOM

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Precision Listening Rooms

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Rooms for microphones

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Room for entertainment