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SOUND IN ENCLOSED
SPACE & CONTROL

Dr Nurul Farhana Mohd Yusof

Room 3.12 Ext. 6382
Ooi Lu Ean
Room 3.33 Ext. 6315
Introduction
•When sound is produced in an enclosed space echoes build up.
•The sound that reaches a listener in an enclosed space can be
classified into two broad categories:
1. the direct (free field) sound
2. indirect (reverberant) sound

Reception of direct and indirect sound. 2

•When a sound wave undergoes a reflection, part of the sound energy in the
wave is absorbed by the reflecting surface and part of the energy is reflected.
•Thus the sound level will decay (decrease) at each reflection, and the rate of
decay is commonly measured in terms of reverberation time T.

Sound reflection and absorption due to presence of barrier in the sound path
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Reverberant sound is the collection of all the reflected sounds in an

enclosure like an auditorium
Reverberant sound field
•Reverberation time is important characteristic of room behaviour.
•The reverberation time, T, is defined as the time required for the average
sound pressure level to decay (decrease) 60 dB after the sound source has
been stopped. The reverberation time at room temperature is related to the
room dimensions and the total absorption by the simple expression:

•where V is the room volume and the total absorption A.

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Reverberant sound field
• Reverberation is dependent on the volume of a space and the acoustically
absorptive quality of the rooms finishes (i.e absorption materials, structure and size)
and all objects (including people) within the room.

• RT60 is the time taken for the sound to decay by 60 dB when the source is
removed.

• In a real environment this can be difficult to achieve, so it is more common to use

the RT30 or RT20. These are based on the time taken for the sound to decay by
either 30 or 20 dB respectively, and this is then extrapolated to 60 dB.

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• Long reverberation times can make speech unintelligible,
short reverberation times can make music sound "dead".
• The ideal reverb time depends on the size and intended
use of the space.

• Typical method of measuring reverberation time:

• Impulse excitation method (using impulsive force, e.g.
starting pistol or balloon)
• Interrupted noise method (using loudspeaker as sound
source)
Impulse excitation method
• When measuring the RT30 or RT20 the
sound level meter should ignore the first
5 dB of decay.
• Avoid measuring any lower than 10 to
15 dB above the background noise, it
Interrupted noise method
means that your noise source should be
at least 45 dB above background for
RT30 and 35 dB above background for
RT20.
• It is for this reason that RT60 is difficult
to measure directly, as the background
noise would have to be low and the
noise source exceptionally high.
What is a desirable reverberation time?

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The ideal reverberation time depends on the size and intended use of
the enclosed space.

Reference reverberation time for lecture

hall/ class room

Typical reverberation times for various

auditoriums and functions.
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 Hamilton Mausoleum in Scotland is well-known for the record of
longest lasting echo, i.e. 15 seconds, in man-made structure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4105UVBoRI 12
Reverberation time
•The reverberation time:

•V is the room volume and A is the total absorption, defined as:

•Where S is the area of the surface and α is the sound absorption coefficient of
the surface. If S in square meters, A is measured in metric sabins (equal to 1m2
of absorption area).
•α is defined as the ratio of the sound energy Wa absorbed by the surface divided
by the sound energy Wi incident upon the surface.

•Sound absorption coefficient for materials are usually specified for the 1/1
octave frequency bands between the center frequencies of 125 Hz and 4000 Hz.

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Sound absorption
coefficients of some
common building
materials.

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Absorption coefficient
(Raichel,2006 pg 250)

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Reverberant sound field
•Longer reverberation time gives a boost to sound in the rear of an auditorium.

Benefit of frequency dependent sound absorption coefficient in designing auditoriums.

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•Often an area may be composed of surfaces with contain materials with
different absorption coefficients.
•Therefore total absorption A is calculated by forming the product of the
room surface area S and the corresponding absorption coefficient α.
•When this is the case, the average absorption coefficient is defined as:

where S1, S2,…,Sn are the surface areas with the respective absorption
coefficients α1, α2,…, αn.

and

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Example:

A 4.5m x 3m x 9m room has the absorption coefficients of walls α =0.02, floor

α = 0.1, and ceiling α = 0.26. Determine the reverberation time of the room.
Neglect absorption of sound due to the air.

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Solution:
The surface area and the volume of
the room are:
S = 2 (4.5x3 + 3x9 + 9x4.5) = 162 m2
V = 4.5 x 3 x 9 = 121.5 m3

•The average sound absorption coefficient is:

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Solution:
•The total absorption of the room A can be calculated from:

•Note that, if we use A = Sαav= 162 x 0.1 = 16.2 metric sabins.

• The reverberation time, neglecting absorption of sound due to the air can be
calculated as follows:

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Class activity

At the assigned space,

1. Describe the
reverberation time (RT)
2. Why the indicated
RT is required?
3. Discuss the suitable
surface (reflective/
absorbing material)
should be used to
produce the desired RT.
Give example of
the suitable material and
equipment can be use.
Reverberant sound field
The energy density in a large enclosure is composed of direct field and
reverberant field components. Based on the one-dimensional spherical wave
analysis of the direct and reverberant fields, the root mean square sound
pressure at distance r from the source is given by:

R is the room constant (m²)

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Reverberant sound field

(a) Example of sound source radiating from a point.

(b) In many cases a sound source may be sitting on a hard floor, radiating sound
into half space
(c) In corner where a wall and floor meet, radiating sound into quarter space
(d) In a corner where two walls and a floor meet, radiating sound into eighth
space

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Reverberant sound field
•The root mean square sound pressure at distance r from the source:

•R is the room constant (m²), is very important and is defined as:

• where αav is the average absorption coefficient and S is the total area in m².

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Reverberant sound field
•The root mean square sound pressure at distance r from the source:

• The equation above can be written in terms of more useful logarithmic

levels. Dividing both sides by P2ref and then multiply the numerator and
denominator by (ρoco)ref and Sref yields:

•Noting that for normal temperature and atmospheric conditions

•Thus,

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Reverberant sound field

•Taking the logarithm of both sides and multiply by 10 of the above equation yields:

•In the reverberant sound field:

thus  Eq. (a)

•In the direct sound field:

Eq. (b)
thus 

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Observation from derivation of Eq. (a) and Eq. (b)

• In regions very close to noise source, the direct field dominates. The sound
pressure level in this region is independent of the room constant (Eq. b) and
thus, cannot be altered by adding or taking away sound absorption in the
enclosure. The only way to reduce the sound pressure level in this region is to
change the source and reduce its associated sound power.

• In regions substantially away from a noise source, the reverberant field

dominates. Increasing or decreasing the room constant R in this region by
adding or taking away sound absorption in the enclosed space can substantially
change the resulting sound pressure level (Eq. a).

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Example:
A 4.5m x 3m x 9m room has a 10 microwatt (10-5 W) sound source located in
the center of the 4.5m wall where the floor and wall meet as shown below.
The absorption coefficients associated with the room are: walls α = 0.02,
floor α = 0.1, and ceiling α = 0.26.
Find the sound pressure level at the center of the room (4.5m from the
source) for:
(a) presence of the reverberant field
(b) assuming only direct sound radiation from the sound source.

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Solution:

•The average sound absorption coefficient is determine first:

•The room constant R :

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Solution:
•The sound pressure level with the reverberation field is found from:

•Since the sound source is located in the center where the floor and wall
meet (quarter space), Q = 4. Thus

•Therefore the sound pressure level for reverberant field is:

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Solution:

(b) The sound pressure level associated with the direct field can be found as
shown below:

* As can be seen from the above results, the pressure of the reverberant
sound field causes around 12 dB increases in the sound pressure level
at the center of the room.

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Exercise
A 4.5m x 3m x 9m room has a 10 microwatt (10-5 W) sound source located in
the center of the 4.5m wall where the floor and wall meet as shown below.
The absorption coefficients associated with the room are: walls α = 0.02,
floor α = 0.1, and ceiling α = 0.26. There is also 1 door with a dimension of
2m x 2 m with the absorption coefficients of α =0.04.
a) Determine the reverberation time of the room. Neglect absorption of
sound due to the air.
b) Find the sound pressure level at the center of the room (4.5m from the
source) for the presence of the reverberant field.