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The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School EFFECTS OF PERTURBATIONS ON THE REVERBERANT SOUND FIELD OF A ROOM A Thesis in Acoustics by Sumeet Sanjay Gawali © 2020 Sumeet Sanjay Gawali Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science May 2020 ii The thesis of Sumeet Gawali was reviewed and approved by the following: Stephen Thompson Research Professor Thesis Advisor Daniel Russell Teaching Professor of Acoustics and Distance Education Coordinator Robert Smith Assistant Research Professor Victor Sparrow Director of Graduate Program in Acoustics and United Technologies Corporation Professor of Acoustics iii ABSTRACT The reverberant sound field in a room, with all surfaces of the room being stationary, depends on the objects present in the room and their reflective or absorptive features and partly expressed in the reverberation time of the room. However, if perturbations are introduced in the sound field, either by moving objects in a room or by introducing new moving objects in the room with reflective or absorptive characteristics, the reverberant sound field undergoes modifications as the reflections change and in turn change how sound waves in a room interfere with each other at different locations in the room. These changes can be observed by making a comparison measurement between the frequency response of the room when it is stationary and when it is being perturbed. In this research effort, the impact on the time averaged sound field of a person moving through four candidate rooms was examined to assess the impact of this type of practical and easily achieved level of perturbation on a room. Hence, a comparison measurement was conducted in various rooms on the University Park campus of the Penn State University to analyze and study the effects of this type of perturbations on the sound field of a room. In the four types of rooms examined in this study, it was found that a person walking around did not produce what would be a significant improvement on averaging sound pressure level uniformity over the distribution of measured points in the rooms. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ vi LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ xi Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Reverberant and Diffuse field ............................................................................. 6 Reverberant field ......................................................................................................... 7 Diffuse Field ............................................................................................................... 9 Schroeder frequency .................................................................................................... 10 Chapter 3 Overview of Measurements ................................................................................ 15 General Setup .............................................................................................................. 15 Equipment ................................................................................................................... 16 Audio Signal ........................................................................................................ 17 Sound Source ....................................................................................................... 17 Microphones ........................................................................................................ 19 Audio Interface .................................................................................................... 19 Storage and processing ......................................................................................... 20 Chapter 4 Measurements and Data Analysis ....................................................................... 22 Microphone sensitivity measurements ......................................................................... 23 Reverberation time (RT60) measurement..................................................................... 24 Background noise measurement................................................................................... 27 Comparison measurement............................................................................................ 28 Stationary measurement ....................................................................................... 28 Perturbed measurement ........................................................................................ 28 Data Analysis .............................................................................................................. 29 Reverberation time (RT60) measurement ............................................................. 29 Comparison measurements................................................................................... 31 Chapter 5 Conference Room – Data Analysis ..................................................................... 33 General construction and features ................................................................................ 33 Reverberation time (RT60) measurement..................................................................... 34 Preliminary calculations .............................................................................................. 36 Background noise measurement................................................................................... 37 Comparison measurement............................................................................................ 38 Chapter 6 Room #22 (Hammond Building) – Data Analysis ............................................... 44 v General construction and features ................................................................................ 44 Reverberation time (RT60) measurement..................................................................... 45 Preliminary calculations .............................................................................................. 47 Background noise measurement................................................................................... 48 Comparison measurement............................................................................................ 50 Chapter 7 Reverberation chamber – Data analysis .............................................................. 56 General construction and features ................................................................................ 56 Reverberation time (RT60) measurement..................................................................... 57 Preliminary calculations .............................................................................................. 58 Background noise measurement................................................................................... 59 Comparison measurement............................................................................................ 61 Chapter 8 Ensemble A 132 (Music Building - II) – Data analysis ....................................... 68 General construction and features ................................................................................ 68 Reverberation time (RT60) measurement..................................................................... 69 Preliminary calculations .............................................................................................. 71 Background noise measurement................................................................................... 72 Comparison measurement............................................................................................ 73 Chapter 9 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 80 Appendix Schroeder frequency ......................................................................................... 83 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1-1: Experimental study conducted by Arthur Benade in his Laboratory space showing the effect of a person walking around in a room ............................................. 12 Figure 1-2 The four rooms measured for this research study ................................................ 5 Figure 2-1: Newell’s graph representing the concept of critical distance in a room. .............. 8 Figure 2-2: General categories of Room Modes. .................................................................. 12 Figure 2-3: Frequency response of a rectangular room of volume 180 cu. m. showing the modal density of the room ........................................................................................... 112 Figure 3-1: General signal flow chain. ................................................................................. 16 Figure 3-2: JBL Flip 4. ........................................................................................................ 18 Figure 3-3: Dayton Audio Emm6 Electret microphone. ....................................................... 19 Figure 3-4: Zoom F8n Multitrack field recorder. ................................................................. 20 Figure 4-1: B&K Type 4231 Sound Calibrator. ..................................................................
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