Acoustics-VII

(Building sciences)
sem

Subject code: 15ARC 7.3

Subject: BUILDING SERVICES – IV(ACOUSTICS AND NOISE CONTROL)
Faculty incharge: MR. JANARDHAN HAVANJE
AR. SHRAVYA HEGDE 1
Introduction to the study of Acoustics-

Nature of sound,
Basic Terminology,
Frequency,
Pitch Tone,
Sound pressure,
Sound intensity,
Decibel scale

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Introduction
• Sound is a result of vibration.

• The vibration is produced by a source, travels in the

medium, as a wave and is ultimately sensed through the
ear - drum

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What is noise?
• Noise is unwanted or damaging sound which
interferes with what people are trying to do

• Sound which has an adverse effect on health

and safety.

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Sound (or noise)

Is the result of pressure variations, or oscillations, in an

elastic medium (e.g., air, water, solids), generated by a
vibrating surface, or turbulent fluid flow.

Speed : 1130 ft/sec air borne sound

16000 ft/sec in case of structure borne sound in steel
pipes
12000 ft/s in concrete

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Sound waves
• Compression in sound waves is a region of raised
pressure

• Rarefaction in sound waves is a region of lowered

pressure.

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 Frequency /Oscillations /hertz
• The number of cycles completed in one second is
called the frequency.

• The faster the speaker vibrates, the higher the

frequency of the sound.

• Frequency is measured in hertz (abbreviated Hz., One

Hertz equals one cycle per second.

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Frequency /Oscillations /hertz

Human speech contains energy from

125 -8000 Hz.

Low-frequency tones (say, 100 Hz)

are low pitched;
high-frequency tones (say,10,000 Hz)
are high- pitched

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 Amplitude – (Height of Waves)

• The vertical distance of the wave from the centreline is called

the amplitude of the wave.

• The amplitude of the peak is called the peak amplitude

The greater the amplitude, the louder the sound

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Time period :
This defines the time it takes for one complete wave to
pass a given point, measured in seconds (s) (WL = T).
 Wavelength
• When a sound wave travels through the air, the physical distance from one peak
(compression) to the next is called a wavelength.

• Low frequencies have long wavelengths (several feet); high frequencies have short
wavelengths (a few inches or less).

λ = wavelength
f= frequency (Hz)
λ = 1130 /f

λ = c / f where c is velocity of sound and f is frequency

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 Velocity
• The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a
sound wave propagating through an elastic medium.

• The speed of sound depends on the type of medium and the

temperature of the medium.

The speed of sound in dry air is given by:

v  331.4 + 0.60 T, where T is air temp in°C.

Here are speeds for sound:

Air, 0 °C: 331 m/s Air, 20 °C: 343 m/s Water, 25 °C: 1493 m/s Iron: 5130 m/s
Glass (Pyrex): 5640 m/s Diamond: 12 000 m/s

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 Sound power ( Power emitted by the source )

• It is the total sound power emitted by a source in all directions.

It is measured in watts (joules / second).

• Sound Power Level (PWL) = 10 log W/W0, where W0= 10-12

watts.

• Sound power level indicates the strength of a sound source,

irrespective of the location of source and observer

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 Sound intensity – (power per unit area)
Rate of energy flow across a unit area (power per unit area)
Six dB decrease in intensity for each doubling of distance from the source

Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner (19th cent German

Scientists )
Discovered that nearly all human sensations are proportional
to the logarithm of intensity of the stimulus.

L1=10 log I/Io

where L1= Sound Intensity Level ( dB)
I= Sound Intensity ( W/m2)
Io= minimum threshold of audibility at 0 dB
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 Sound pressure – (local pressure deviation from
ambient atmospheric pressure)

Threshold of pain'' corresponds to a pressure 10-12 times

greater than the audibility threshold, but still less than 1/1000
of atmospheric pressure.

Lp = 10 × log10(P/P0)2

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Longitudinal Waves

molecule
wavelength, 

rarefaction compression
Animation 19
Sound Waves: Molecular View

wavelength, 

Sources: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/waves/lw.html 20
Pure Tones:
Pure tone is vibration produced at a single frequency.
Ex: Tuning fork

Tp=1/f

Tp= period (s/cycle)

f= frequency (cycles/s or HZ)

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 Complex Sounds:

The variation in pressure

caused by speech ,music or
noise

Threshold of hearing for humans is

one millionth of normal
atmospheric pressure

Source: http://www.britannica.com/science/complex-tone

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Introduction to the study of Acoustics-
Loudness,
Threshold of audibility, and pain,
Masking of sound, and distance,
inverse square law

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Factors: Age, sex, ethnicity, previous exposures to high noise levels from the workplace,
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gunfire, power tools, rock music etc.
Human hearing range is from 0-130 dB, which is a tremendous intensity ratio of
10 trillion ( 10,000,000,000,000) to 1.

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Source: http://thehearingblog.com/archives/3278 26
Source: http://sound.westhost.com/articles/fadb.htm
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Difference Between Two Levels to Amount to Add to Higher Level to
Be Added Find the Sum

0–1 dB 3 dB
2–4 dB 2 dB
5–9 dB 1 dB
10 dB 0d

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 Inverse Square Law Of Sound

The inverse square law tells us that every doubling of the distance from the sound source in a
free field situation the sound pressure level will diminish by 6 decibels.

From line sources it drops of 3 dB for each doubling of distance.

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 I1/I2= (d2/d1)2

Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner (19th cent German Scientists )

Discovered that nearly all human sensations are proportional to the logarithm
of intensity of the stimulus.

L1=10 log I/Io

where L1= Sound Intensity Level ( dB)
I= Sound Intensity ( W/m2)
Io= minimum threshold of audibility at 0 dB

Example 1: The intensity of rock music group is 8.93X10-2 W/m2. Find the corresponding
sound Intensity Level L of the instrument

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L=10 log I/Io
I= 8.93x10-2

Io= 10-12

L= 10 log x8.93x10-2/10 -12

= 10 log (8.93x10 )
10

= 10(10.9509)
= 110 dB
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Example 2: Loud Speech measuring at 3’0” away , has a sound intensity level L1 of 73 dB.
Find the corresponding intensity l.
Example 3: A car horn outdoors produces a sound intensity level L1 of 90dB at 10’ 0” away.
a) calculate sound intensity at 10’0” away
b) Calculate the power of the sound ?
c) Calculate the intensity level at 80’0” away
Example 3: The measured sound intensity level of one trombone is 80 dB. Find the sound
intensity level of 76 trombones

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Equal loudness contour.
An equal-loudness contour is a measure of sound pressure (dB SPL), over the
frequency spectrum, for which a listener perceives a constant loudness when
presented with pure steady tones. The unit of measurement for loudness levels
is the phon, and is arrived at by reference to equal-loudness contours.
Fig . Below explains the equal loudness contours.

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Sound Level Meters

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BG1

BG1

BG1

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Timbre/tone
Timbre is what makes a particular musical sound different from another, even when
they have the same pitch and loudness. For instance, it is the difference between a
guitar and a piano playing the same note at the same loudness.

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