Experimental work 3: Absorption coefficient measurement Signature: Instruments and acoustic measurements Professors: Sato, Shin-Ichi Bidondo, Alejandro

Student: Arrate, Francisco

Absorption coefficient measurement

1. Introduction
Reducing sound energy in an enclosure is associated, among other factors, to the absorption characteristics. Such absorption has great importance in determining the acoustic quality of the space. Once the volume and shape of the chamber are decided is relevant to select the materials which make its coating and conditioning. One of the most important acoustical parameters when making this choice is absorption coefficient. It can vary greatly from one material to another. The calculation of this coefficient can be done by different methods. Among the most used are the impedance tube and reverberation chamber measurement. This work aims to evaluate the absorption coefficient by the reverberation room method specified in ISO 354 using the integrated impulse response in time.

2. Measuring place. Equipment and software used

- Site: National University of Tres de Febrero, Caseros, Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Sound level meter: Svantek 959. - Calibrator: Svantek 30 A. - Measurment microphones: Earthworks M50. - Audio interface: M-Audio Fast track pro. - Notebook: Hp Pavilion. - Softwares of measurement and edition: Adobe Audition 3.0.

3. Possible systematic errors

The volume of the room, where the test was performed, not respect the minimum permitted by ISO 354 for absorption coefficient measurements in a reverberation chamber. The climatic conditions were considered the same for all the measurements. Therefore the speed of sound will be the same. The size of the test specimen is not the appropriate according to ISO 354. In case of the separated specimens the distance to the walls was not less than 0,75 meters. The distance from the source to any microphone position was not less than 2 meters in some cases. 1

Absorption coefficient measurement

4. Room characteristics
The rooms volume is is shown at figure 1. and its surface is . The shape of the room .This fulfills the condition of the

The length of the longest straight line is rule:

Figure 1. Room dimensions.

5. Procedure
Measurements were realized according to reverberation chamber method standardized in ISO 354. First the reverberation time of the empty room without test samples was measured. Afterwards, these parameters were calculated using two different arrangements: Arrangement 1: test specimens together. (Figure 2) Arrangement 2: test specimens separated. (Figure 3)

The equivalent absorption area was calculated according to: (1) (2)

where is the room volume and c is the sound speed propagation in air (343m/s), is the reverberation time of the empty room and with test specimens.

Absorption coefficient measurement

The total absorption equivalent area was obtained with the equation below: (3) Then the absorption coefficient was calculated with: (4) where: is the equivalent sound absorption area of the test specimen. is the area, in square metres, covered by the test specimen.

Figura 2. Arrangement 1.

Figure 3. Arragement 2.

Absorption coefficient measurement

The distance between all microphones positions was greater than 1.5 meters and between the sources positions greater than 3 meters. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Microphones and source positions.

The repeatability of measured reverberation times was evaluated according to ISO 354 standard, with the equation below: (5) where, is the standard deviation of the reverberation time ; is the reverberation time; is the center frequency of the one-third-octave band and is the number of the decay curves evaluated. The edge effect was estimated according to the following equation: (6) where is the absorption coefficient measured; is the absorption coefficient searched; is a factor obtained to a provided curve and is the relative edge wich relating wavelength with the perimeter of test specimen.

6. Results
The following table shows the reverberation time calculated in different conditions: RT1: reverberation time without test specimens. RT2: reverberation time with arrangement 1. RT3: reverberation time with arrangement 2.

Absorption coefficient measurement

F [Hz] RT 1 RT 2 RT 3 100 125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1 KHz 2,80 1,81 1,82 1,25 KHz 2,67 1,84 1,78 1,6 KHz 2 KHz 2,5 KHz 2,52 1,75 1,74 3,15 KHz 4 5 KHz KHz

2,24 2,20 2,73 2,58 3,08 2,76 2,85 2,90 2,89 2,87 1,54 1,47 1,44 1,41 1,26 1,35 1,53 1,73 1,86 1,81 1,48 1,56 1,46 1,22 1,12 1,14 1,36 1,58 1,74 1,80

2,62 2,62 1,83 1,83 1,81 1,79

2,30 2,04 1,77 1,65 1,49 1,35 1,61 1,44 1,28

Table 1. Reverberation time. With reverberation times and equivalent sound absorption area, the alpha was obtained. Results are shown below:

F [Hz] s1 s2

100

125

160

200

250

315

400

500

630

800

1 KHz

1,25 KHz 0,56 0,63

1,6 KHz

2 KHz

2,5 KHz 0,58 0,59

3,15 KHz

4 5 KHz KHz

0,68 0,75 1,08 1,07 1,56 1,27 1,02 0,78 0,64 0,75 0,62 1,07 1,43 1,88 1,70 1,28 0,96 0,76

0,68 0,66 0,69 0,64

0,55 0,55 0,57 0,59

0,57 0,60 0,59 0,63 0,68 0,72

Table 2. Absorption coefficients.

Absorption coefficient s
2,00 1,80 1,60 1,40 1,20 1,00 0,80 0,60 0,40 0,20 0,00

Arrangement 1 Arrangement 2

1/3 Octave band [Hz]

Figure 5. Absorption coefficient. In the figure 5 it can be observed the increased absorption at low frequencies, which is an expected result because being evaluated bass traps.

F [Hz] s1 s2

100

125

160

200

250

315

400

500

630

800

1 KHz

1,25 KHz 0,56 0,63

1,6 KHz

2 KHz

2,5 KHz 0,58 0,59

3,15 KHz

4 5 KHz KHz

0,68 0,75 1,08 1,07 1,56 1,27 1,02 0,78 0,64 0,75 0,62 1,07 1,43 1,88 1,70 1,28 0,96 0,76

0,68 0,66 0,69 0,64

0,55 0,55 0,57 0,59

0,57 0,60 0,59 0,63 0,68 0,72

Table 2. Absorption coefficient.

Absorption coefficient measurement

The following table shows the product done for each frequency, according to different arrangement and the provided values of Beta:
F [Hz] .E Arrangement 1 .E Arrangement 2 160 2,14 0,002 0,001 0,000 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1,72 1,37 1,09 0,86 0,69 0,54 0,43 0,054 0,069 0,105 0,138 0,145 0,125 0,100 0,014 0,014 0,017 0,018 0,015 0,010 0,006 0,004 0,004 0,005 0,006 0,005 0,003 0,002 1000 0,34 0,080 0,004 0,001

Table 3. Product

for each arrangement evaluated.

F [Hz] s1 s2

100

125

160

200

250

315

400

500

630

800

1 KHz 0,65 0,64

1,25 KHz

1,6 2 2,5 KHz KHz KHz

3,15 KHz

4 5 KHz KHz

0,68 0,75 1,08 1,05 1,54 1,25 1,00 0,76 0,63 0,68 0,75 0,62 1,07 1,43 1,87 1,70 1,28 0,95 0,76 0,69

0,56 0,55 0,55 0,58 0,63 0,57 0,59 0,59

0,57 0,60 0,59 0,63 0,68 0,72

Table 4. Absorption coefficient with edge correction. In table 4 above is shown the absorption coefficient corrected in red color. Repeatabilty The repeatability was calculated with the relation below, according to ISO 354, annex C: (7) Where t is the student distribution factor, 2.18 for this case; n is number of measurements, 12 for this case. The results were shown in the following table.
F [Hz] 100 125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1 KHz 1,25 1,6 2 KHz KHz KHz 2,5 KHz 3,15 4 5 KHz KHz KHz 0,29 0,20 0,17

0,50 1,01 1,31 1,30 1,14 1,41 1,04 0,76 0,16 0,28 0,26

0,21 0,18 0,15 0,28

0,62 0,61 1,36 0,62 1,08 1,15 0,35 0,64 0,55 0,34 0,32

0,15 0,31 0,12 0,30

0,12 0,36 0,24

Table 5. Repeatability.

for the arrangement 1 and

for the arrangement 2.

Absorption coefficient measurement

7. Conclusions
The room used to evaluate absorption coefficient was not appropriate. The volume of the room is much less than that proposed by the reverberation room method specified in the ISO 354 standard. Therefore systematic errors increase. Absorption between 160 and 400 Hz. shown a increase of 0,62 to 1,88 in tow arrangement. Although it is expected that the absorption is greater than low to high frequency, the increase observed is to much and could not be evaluate their provenance. As shown in the above tables, correction for edge effect virtually did not alter the absorption coefficient values.

8. Bibliography
ISO 354: 2003. Acoustics. Measurements of sound absorption in a reverberation room. Carrin Isbert, Antoni. Diseo acstico de espacios arquitectnicos. Los autores, ediciones UPC. Barcelona, 1998. Improving the accuracy of sound absorption measurement according to ISO 354. M.L.S. Vercammen. ISRA 2010. Melbourne, Australia. www.acoustics.asn.au/conference_proceedings/ICA2010/cdromISRA2010/Papers/P2d.pdf Accelerated measurement of the absorption, scattering and diffusion coefficients using multiple microphone arrays. Peter DAntonio, Brian Rife and Michael C. DAntonio. RPG Diffusor Systems, Inc.