Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 53, No. 2, August 2008, pp.

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Measurement of Sound Transmission Loss by Using Impedance Tubes

Fluid Flow/Acoustics & Vibration Center, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon 305-340 Department of Physics, Pukyong National University, Busan 608-737
(Received 28 January 2008) The sound transmission loss of several sound absorbent materials was measured by using an impedance tube and was compared with theoretically calculated values. The impedance tube system designed for the testing consisted of an upstream tube, a sample-holder section and a downstream tube. The transfer function method and a four-pole matrix analysis were used in measuring and calculating the sound transmission loss, respectively. Good agreement between the measured and the theoretical values was obtained.
PACS numbers: 43.55.Rg Keywords: Sound transmission loss, Impedance tube, Flow resistivity

Sung Soo

Jung,

Yong Tae

Kim

and Yong Bong

Lee

Seung Il

Cho

and Jong Kyu

Lee

I. INTRODUCTION

The sound transmission loss of sound absorbent materials is one of the essential considerations in building acoustic and environmental noise reduction panels. In determining the sound absorption coecient, the internationally standardized impedance tube method has been widely used [1]. However, there is no international standard for sound transmission loss measurement procedures for use in conjunction with impedance tubes. Bolton et al. modied a sound absorption measurement impedance tube so that it could be used as a sound transmission measurement device and used it in measuring the sound transmission loss of automotive sealant materials [2]. Ho et al. measured the sound transmission of perforated panels with an impedance tube similar to Bolton's measurement system, but one having a dierent sample holder section and using a monotonic wave [3]. Recently, a commercial sound transmission measuring system, which was proposed by Ryu, has become available [4], i.e, the B&K 4206T transmission loss tube kit. In general, sound transmission loss measurement tubes are comprised of three parts: the upstream tube, the sample holder section and the downstream tube. Both Bolton and Ho used a closed boundary condition in the downstream tube with a semi-anechoic termination whereas Ryu used both open and closed boundary conditions during measurements. We constructed a sound transmission measurement system similar to Bolton's and Ho's, but utilizing a different sample-holder section. The sound transmission
E-mail:
jss@kriss.re.kr

reduction of both ber- and foam-type sound absorbent materials were measured and compared with theoretically calculated values for verifying the accuracy of the measurement system.
II. DETERMINATION OF SOUND TRANSMISSION LOSS

1. Experiment

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The impedance tubes for the sound transmission loss measurement are shown in Figure 1. One set of two microphones (MP1 and MP2) was mounted in the upstream tube and another set of two microphones (MP3 and MP4) was mounted in the downstream tube so that measurement of both incident and re ected waves could be attained. The reference position (x = 0) is given as the front surface of a sample: x1 , x2 , x3 and x4 likewise denote each microphone's position. If a one-dimensional plane wave in the tube is assumed to be pej (!tkx) , then the Fourier components of the sound pressure at microphone placed at positions 1, 2, 3 and 4 can be expressed by the following equations after elimination of the timedependent term: p1 = Aejkx1 + Bejkx1 ; (1) jkx jkx 2 2 p2 = Ae + Be ; (2) p3 = Cejkx3 + Dejkx3 ; (3) jkx jkx 4 4 p4 = Ce + De ; (4) where k is the wave number, A and B indicate the incident and the re ected wave components in the upstream

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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the impedance tube for measuring the sound transmission loss.

tube and C and D indicate the transmitted and the re ected wave components in the downstream tube. Eqs. (1) through (4) can be rearranged to solve for the coefcients A to D as j (p1 ejkx2 p2 ejkx1 ) ; (5) A= 2sink(x1 x2 ) j (p2 ejkx1 p1 ejkx2 ) ; (6) B= 2sink(x1 x2 ) j (p3 ejkx4 p4 ejkx3 ) C= ; (7) 2sink(x3 x4 ) j (p4 ejkx3 p3 ejkx4 ) D= : (8) 2sink(x3 x4 ) To simplify the transmission loss equation, we used as equal distance between the two microphones. The transmission coecient (T) is dened as C/A and the transmission loss (TL) is equal to {20logjT j [5]:
TL

The sound transmission coecient and transmission loss are expressed as [6]
T

= 2ejkd =(T11 + T12 + T21 + T22 ); = 20 log jT j;

(11) (12)

TL

where T11 = cosh(kc d), T12 = Zc sinh(kc d), T21 = sinh(kc d)=Zc and T22 = cosh(kc d) with Zc and kc being the characteristic impedance and the propagation constant of the test sample. For Zc and kc , Miki's model was used for a ber sample [7]:
Zc =Z0 kc =k

= 0:18 0:618 + j [1 + 0:122 0:618 ];

= 1 + 0:079 0:632 j 0:12 0:632 ;

(13) (14)

where s = jx1 x2 j = jx3 x4 j. H12 = p2 =p1 is the transfer function, which is the ratio of the Fourier-transform component between the sound pressures at positions 1 and 2 and H34 = p4 =p3 is the transfer function, which is the ratio of the Fourier-transform component between p the sound pressures at positions 3 and 4. Ht = jSd =Su j is the ratio between the auto-spectrum in the upstream tube, Su and the auto-spectrum in the downstream tube, Sd , respectively. White noise was generated by the spectrum analyzer and the noise signal was simultaneously measured by using 4 microphones.
2. Theory

12  = 20 log   jks e H34  20 log jHt j;

  ejks

where Z0 is the acoustic impedance of air,  = (f  ) with f being the frequency,  is the density of air and  is the ow resistivity of the material. For an open-cell foam sample, Jung's model was used [8]:
Zc =Z0 kc =k

(9)

= 0:161 0:614 + j [1 + 0:185 0:478 ]:

= 1 + 0:12 0:618 j 0:0993 0:635 ;

(15) (16)

III. SOUND TRANSMISSION LOSS OF FIBER AND FOAM MATERIALS

The sound pressures and the normal particle velocities on the front and the rear surfaces of the test sample are expressed as a four pole matrix:


p v

x=0

T11 T12 T21 T22



p v

x=d

(10)

Impedance tubes for measuring the sound transmission loss consisted of three parts: an upstream tube with a loud speaker, a removable test sample holder and a downstream tube with a semi-anechoic termination, as shown in Figure 2. Impedance tubes are made of two cylindrical metal tubes having inner diameters of 30 mm (for test frequency up to 6400 Hz) and 100 mm (for test frequency up to 1600 Hz). Two sets of two microphones were positioned, one set in the upstream tube and the other in the downstream tube, with the same space of 50 and 25 mm between two microphones for larger and smaller inner diameter tubes, respectively. White noise was generated by using a spectrum analyzer (B&K 3550) and was amplied with a power amplier (B&K 2706).

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 53, No. 2, August 2008

Fig. 2. Sound transmission loss measurement impedance tubes.

Fig. 3. Measured sound absorption coecient for various wedge angles. Fig. 5. Flow resistivity measurement system.

Fig. 4. Measured vibration signal near the position of microphone 2 in the upstream tube and the position of microphone 3 in the downstream tube.

The sound pressures were simultaneously measured by using 4 microphones (B&K 4935). A 400-mm-thick urethane foam was used for an anechoic termination in the downstream tube. The sound absorption coecient was measured by using the impedance tube method by varying the wedge angles and

Fig. 6. Comparison between the measured and the calculated sound transmission losses of a glass wool specimen (50-mm thickness, 24-kg/m3 volume density and 15,000 mks rayls ow resistivity).

the results are shown in Figure 3. The measured sound absorption coecient at the wedge in the 100-mm inner diameter tube is shown in Figure 3. The results show

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Fig. 7. Comparison between the measured and the calculated sound transmission losses for a polyester specimen (25mm thickness and 24-kg/m3 volume density): (a) 100-mm inner diameter tube and (b) 30-mm inner diameter tube.

Fig. 8. Comparison between the measured and the calculated sound transmission losses for a urethane foam specimen (50-mm thickness and 6-kg/m3 volume density): (a) 100-mm inner diameter tube and (b) 30-mm inner diameter tube.

that a wedge angle of 28 gave the best sound absorption coecient, which was nearly 0.98, from 600 Hz, which can be considered as a nearly anechoic termination. There's a certain possibility that unwanted vibrationinduced noise by the loud speaker can be propagated into the downstream section via the tube's surface. In order to check the vibration, we positioned two accelerometers (B&K 4375) near the microphones, one at microphone 2 and the other at microphone 3. For a sound pressure in the upstream tube of 105 dB, the simultaneously measured vibration signals are compared in Figure 4. The results show the velocity levels are quite low. When converting the velocity level to the sound pressure level (assuming a plane wave), the average sound pressure levels in the downstream tube were about 30 dB. Therefore, the vibration via the test sample section had no signicant eect on measuring the sound transmission loss. A glass ber (50-mm thickness and 24-kg/m3 volume density), a polyester ber (25-mm thickness and 20kg/m3 volume density) and a urethane foam (50-mm thickness and 6-kg/m3 volume density) were used as samples. When calculating the theoretical sound trans-

mission loss with Eqs. (13) to (16), the ow resistivity, which is dened as the ratio of the air pressure dierence accross a test specimen and the steady volumetric air ow rate passing throughout the test specimen to the specimen volume, is needed. To obtain the ow resistivity of the test samples, we made ow resistivity measurement system according to ISO 9053 [9]. The measured ow resistivities of the samples were 15000, 6000 and 3500 mks rayls/m for the glass ber, the polyester ber and the urethane foam, respectively. The measured and the theoretically calculated sound transmission losses of the glass ber sample are compared in Figure 6 and good agreement is obtained. The measured and the calculated sound transmission losses of the polyester ber sample are shown in Figures 7(a) and (b) for large and small inner diameter tubes. For the larger inner diameter tube, the measured and the calculated sound transmission losses agree well. However, in the case of the smaller inner diameter tube, some deviations between the two values are shown to be present. These dierences may be due to the inhomogeneity of the sample and to the nite sample size eect.

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 53, No. 2, August 2008

The measured and the calculated sound transmission losses of the urethane foam sample are compared in Figures 8(a) and (b) and good agreement was obtained. From the results of Figure 6 and Figure 8, the sound transmission loss of a glass ber sample is higher than that of a polyester ber sample which shows that the sound transmission loss mainly depends on density. On the whole, the sound transmission loss of the absorbent materials is low as compared to hard materials, such as metal plates.

ful for comparing the sound transmission losses among samples and for developing new materials.
REFERENCES

IV. CONCLUSION

Impedance tubes for measuring sound transmission loss in ber and foam samples were made and tested. Both measured and theoretically calculated values agreed well. This proves that the present manufactured apparatus is stable and that the impedance tube method is appropriate for measuring the sound transmission loss of sound absorbent materials. This will be use-

[1] ISO 10534-2, Acoustics - Determination of sound absorption coecient and impedance in impedance tubes - Part 2: Transfer-function method (1998). [2] J. S. Bolton, R. J. Yun, J. Pope and D. Apfel, Proceedings of ASE, Paper 971896 (1997). [3] K. N. Ho, Z. Yang, X. X. Zhang and P. Sheng, Appl. Acoustics 66, 751 (2005). [4] Personal communication. [5] J. Y. Chung and D. A. Blaser, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 68 914 (1980). [6] B. H. Song and J. S. Bolton, Proceedings of the KSNVE annual autumn conference, p. 64 (1998). [7] Y. Miki, J. Acoust. Soc. Jpn(E) 11, 19 (1990). [8] S. S. Jung and C. H. Hwang, KSNVE (in Korean) 6, 333 (1996). [9] ISO 9053, Acoustics-materials for acoustical applicationsdetermination of air ow resistance (1991).