BUILDING SERVICES II

ACOUSTICS AND FIRE FIGHTING

What is acoustics?
• The word "acoustic" is derived from the Greek word akoustikos, meaning
"of or for hearing, ready to hear"
 What is acoustics?

• Acoustics is a science of sound which deals with origin, propagation &

auditory sensation of sound.
• It also deals with the design & construction of buildings to set optimum
conditions for producing & listening speech, music etc.
• Acoustics can also be defined as the science deals with the generation,
transmission and reception of energy as vibrating waves in matter.
• The study of sound plays a very important role in various branches of
engineering and has developed to such a level that it has become an
independent branch of engineering known as acoustic engineering or
sound engineering .
• The area of study of design of musical instruments is known as musical
acoustics, the technology of sound production and recording as electro-
acoustics, use of sound in medical diagnosis and therapy as bio-acoustics.
the design of buildings, auditoriums, musical halls, lecture halls, recording
rooms, etc. as architectural acoustics.
• Architectural acoustics deals in general with the behaviour of sound waves
in closed spaces and their design to give the best sound effects.
• The acoustic properties of buildings were not studied on a scientific basis
till about 1900.
• Buildings designed to screen movies, to stage dramas or for music concerts
often lacked the proper acoustic quality and were found unfit for such
activities.
• The Fogg Art Museum hall in Harvard University. U.S.A. turned out to
be highly defective when it was built. The lectures given in it were not
intelligible to audience. Prof. Wallace C. Sabine. Professor of Physics in Harvard
University was entrusted with the responsibility of eliminating the acoustical
defects of the hall.
• Sabine undertook a systematic study of the problem and evolved conditions
for a satisfactory acoustic quality of a hall.
• He found that quite often reverberation was the main cause for a defective
quality of a hall.
• Addition of absorbent materials at appropriate surface enhances the quality of
sound in the halls.
• Other precautions are to be taken about the shape of walls, ceiling and the hall
in total so that acoustic defects do not arise.
• Thus. Prof. Sabine laid the foundations of acoustic engineering.
Three major problems and respective 3 major goals of
acoustical design in architecture:
3 major problems
 3 major goals:
1. Noise control within spaces.
e.g. traffic noise, noise in a factory workshop.
2. Sound distribution within spaces designed for hearing music or
speech.
e.g. music in a concert hall; the speakers voice in a debating
chamber etc
3. Sound isolation between spaces where privacy or quiet are needed.
e.g. noise from a neighbour's party in the early hours of the
morning etc).
 Why to study architectural acoustics?
• The acoustical environment of a particular site may determine,
• the placement of the building,
• the planning and arrangement of spaces within the building,
• the exterior construction,
• even the choice of the site itself.

• For each space in the building, the sound field is influenced by its,
• volume,
• shaping,
• surface finishes and furnishings
all factors that are under the direct control of the designer.
 SOUND
• Nature of sound
• Sound can be described as a
disturbance which passes through a
physical medium in form of a
longitudinal wave from a source to a
receiver causing a sensation of
hearing.
• Longitudinal wave:
• Waves in which the displacement
of the medium is in the same
direction as, or the opposite
direction to, the direction of travel
of the wave.
• Medium:
• It is simply the material through which the disturbance is moving; it
can be thought of as a series of interacting particles.
• The medium could be solid, fluid or gas.
• The speed of sound through these different media differs, upon the
molecular composition of the medium.
• Sound can’t travel in vacuum.
• Due to this motion of the particles, there is a constant variation in the
pressure in the air.
• Sound waves are therefore pressure waves.
• In media where the particles are closer together, sound waves will travel
faster.
 SOUND
• Sound is always produced by some vibrating body.
• The vibrating body excites mechanical waves in the surrounding medium.
These mechanical waves propagate in air in the form of a series of
compressions and rarefactions of air molecules (Fig. 11.1). On reaching the
ear, they cause the eardrum to vibrate, leading to the sensation of hearing.
• Sound cannot travel in a vacuum and requires the presence of an elastic
medium for its propagation. Sound waves are longitudinal waves. The
compressions and rarefactions caused by the vibrating body modulate the
normal atmospheric pressure with small pressure changes occurring
regularly above and below it. Thus, a sound wave is one complete cycle of
pressure variation.
• Sound cannot travel in a vacuum and requires the presence of an elastic
medium for its propagation. Sound waves are longitudinal waves.The
compressions and rarefactions caused by the vibrating body
modulate the normal atmospheric pressure with small pressure
changes occurring regularly above and below it.
• Thus, a sound wave is one complete cycle of pressure variation.
• The wave motion of sound does not change the mean position of the
vibrating particles (molecules) and the average maximum distance of a
particle from its mean position is called amplitude. Even a sound of 0.01
mm amplitude is enough to be audible, while a sound of 0.1 mm amplitude
is quite a loud sound.
 Sound Velocity
• The velocity of sound is not a constant and depends on the nature and
temperature of the medium through which it travels. In general, the velocity of
sound in a gaseous medium is governed by the relation,

where B is the bulk modulus of the medium and p its density.The speed of
sound in air is commonly taken as 344 m/s for normal conditions.This is very
less compared to the velocity of light. Table-1 lists the speed of sound in some
materials. It may be noted that sound travels faster in liquid media than in
gaseous media and much faster in solid media.
Sound Wavelength
 Frequency of vibration

• The number of complete to-and-fro vibrations that the source makes in one
second.
• Frequency is measured in hertz, which represents cycles per second.

Audible frequency ranges:

• The human ear can detect a wide range of frequencies.

• Frequencies from 20 to 20 000 Hz is audible to the human ear.
• Any sound with a frequency below 20 Hz is known as an infrasound and any
sound with a frequency above 20 000 Hz is known as an ultrasound.
 Period

• The time required for one complete vibration cycle.

• Unit is second.
• Consequently, the reciprocal of frequency is period
 Amplitude
• Maximum displacement from the equilibrium i.e. the maximum increase in
pressure from the equilibrium pressure that is caused when a compression
(or rarefaction) passes a point.
 Wave number
• the number of waves in unit distance.
 CLASSIFICATION OF SOUND
• Sound waves are classified based on their frequency into three groups,
namely sonic (audible), infrasonic and ultrasonic waves.
• The waves that produce a sense of sound on a human ear are called
audible waves. Sound waves with frequencies lying in the range of 16 Hz to
20,000 Hz are audible waves.
• Sound waves with frequencies below 16 Hz are called infrasonic waves.
• Sound waves with frequencies above 20 kHz are called ultrasonic waves.
Sometimes classic waves with frequencies of 1010 Hz and higher are called
hypersonic waves. They correspond to thermal waves in liquids or solids.
• Audible sound waves can be further classified according to their
frequency spectrum as,
• (i) Musical sounds and
• (ii) Noise
• Musical sounds produce a pleasing sensation on the ear. They have the
following characteristics.
• Musical sound has a line spectrum containing multiple frequencies.
• Musical sounds are periodic vibrations.
• Sudden changes in amplitude do not occur.
• On the other hand, noise causes irritation and strain to our ears. If very
loud, noise may cause permanent or temporary deafness. Noise has the
following characteristics.
• Noise is a jumble of irregularly timed, non-periodic vibrations.
• It consists of a complex spectrum of frequencies.
• It undergoes erratic changes in amplitude and frequency.
Generic properties/ Characteristics of
sound wave
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUND WAVE
 Pitch
• The frequency of a sound wave is what your ear understands as pitch.

• A higher frequency sound has a higher pitch, and a lower frequency sound
has a lower pitch.
 Tones
• Sound that can be recognized by its regularity of vibration. Categorized as
pure tones and over tones.
• Pure tone:The sound of only one frequency also known as simple
tone, such as that given by a tuning fork or electronic signal
generator.
The fundamental note has the greatest amplitude and is heard
predominantly because it has a larger intensity.The intensity may
vary.
• Complex tone: consists of two or more simple tones, called over
tones.The tone of lowest frequency is called the fundamental and
the others overtones or harmonics and they determine the
quality of the sound.
 Intensity of sound:

• The amount or flow of wave energy crossing through a unit area taken
perpendicular to the direction of propagation in unit time.
• The unit of intensity is decibel (symbol: dB)
 Decibel

• In acoustics, the bel unit was first

used to relate the intensity of
sound to an intensity
corresponding to the human
hearing sensation.
• Threshold of human hearing -The lowest
level of sound that can be heard by the
human ear- 0dB - just barely audible.
• Sound intensity is proportional to
square of sound pressure, which
can be easily measured using
sound level meters.
• In air under normal atmospheric
conditions, sound intensity level and
sound pressure level are nearly identical.
• Sound pressure:
• The average of atmospheric pressure above or below the static pressure
due to the interference of sound wave is called sound pressure.
• SI unit- Pascal (Pa). Can be measured using microphone in air and using
hydrophone in water.
• Sound pressure level: it is relative quantity:
• It is the ratio between the actual sound pressure & a fixed reference
pressure.
• It is measured in decibels (Db) above a standard reference level.
The standard reference pressure in air or other gases is 20μPa (2
x 10-5 Pa = 0Db), which is usually considered as the threshold of
human hearing. SPL measured with sound level meter.
• Sound level meter is commonly used in noise pollution studies for the
quantification of different kind of noise, especially for industrial,
environmental or aircraft noises.
In air under normal atmospheric conditions, sound intensity level and sound
pressure level are nearly identical.
• Thus, the more intense sound is produced by a source that has
greater pressure maxima and minima, which is thus having
larger-amplitude oscillations.
 Loudness

• A physiological sensation.
• A measure of how well a sound can be heard.
• It depends mainly on sound pressure and amplitude
• Unit – phon
• A larger amplitude means a louder sound, and a smaller amplitude
means a softer sound.
 Hearing???
• Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sound by
detecting vibrations, changes in the pressure of the surrounding medium
through time, through an organ such as the ear.
HUMAN EAR
There are three main components of the ear;
•the outer ear
•the middle ear
•the inner ear.
1. The pinna collects the external sound waves and transfers to the ear drum
through the ear canal.
2. The ear drum is made up of an air tight flap of skin. Sound travels as waves
reaches the ear drum and makes the ear drum to vibrate, a particular way
depending upon the frequency and intensity of the sound waves hits on it.
3. The middle ear consists of a small air filled chamber with 3 small bones-
malleus, incus and stapes, known as ossicles. They aid in transmission and
amplification of the vibration from ear drum to the inner ear.
4. The inner ear contains cochlea; which is spiral shaped fluid filled tube that is
considered as the organ of auditory transmission. It is divided
lengthwise by basiliar membrane, a structure that vibrates when the
vibration arrives at the cochlea fluid. This motion causes the movement of
hair cells; specialized auditory receptors within the basiliar membrane.
5. The space time pattern of vibration in the basiliar membrane into spatial
temporary patterns and this fires the auditory nerves which transmits the
information about the sound to the brain cells.