46 M. L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen spacer). The sound intensity, which is the acoustic energy flow through 1 m2, is calculated from the signals of the two microphones. Since the sound intensity is a vector, it gives much more information about the acoustic field than the sound pressure. Many acoustic quantities, such as sound insulation and sound absorption, are defined with the use of sound intensity rather than sound pressure. Therefore, measuring sound intensity will be a more direct way to determine acoustic quantities. The next section of this paper describes how the intensity method can be used in building acoustics, especially for sound insulation measurements. We shall see that some complications may arise when using this method for measurements in the field. Therefore, in the subsequent section, one of these complications will be discussed; that is, the influence of an absorbing partition wall on the transmission loss when measured using the intensity method in a highly reactive receiving room. THE INTENSITY METHOD Theory The sound intensity is defined as: = oy zi vo()pinds = Wm? (1) T Jo where (2) is the particle velocity (m s~ '), p(t) is the sound pressure (Pa), and T is the time period (s). In this paper we will consider the direction of the intensity perpendicular to the radiating surface: we shall use the symbol / instead of T. To determine the sound intensity from the signals of two microphones, two methods are being used:! Ww _Patpnl [Pa—Pn 2 Pas sf Ped wm Q) where p, is the sound pressure of microphone A (Pa), pp is the sound pressure of microphone B (Pa), p is the density of air (kgm~+), and AR is the distance between microphones (m). Q p= inl Sano] ~~ apAR where Im [S,q(©)] is the imaginary part of the cross spectrum of p, and py, and @ is the angular frequency. (3)Building acoustics and absorbing partition walt 47 The first method is called the direct method, and the second the indirect method. During this research the second method was used. For a plane wave, the phase difference betwéen the particle velocity and the sound pressure is 0 degrees. When we are dealing with two plane waves of the same intensity level but opposite direction (standing wave), the phase difference between particle velocity and sound pressure will be 90 degrees. This means that the time-averaged product of the particle velocity and the sound pressure (eqn (1)) is zero. This shows that the sound intensity can indeed be treated as a vector. In practical situations, the acoustic field consists of two parts: first an active part, in which the particle velocity and the sound pressure are in phase, and which contributes to both sound intensity and sound pressure, and secondly a reactive part, in which the particle velocity and the sound pressure are in quadrature, and which only contributes to the sound pressure. The reactivity L, can be defined as: Ix=L,-L, dB (4) For a travelling plane wave this will result in: dB (5) Lx Practical applications At the present time, the intensity method is being used for sound power measurements, source location, absorption measurements and sound insulation measurements. In this paper we will consider the last subject The transmission loss of a building element is defined as: R= 10log(W,/W,) (6) where IV, is the incident power on the partition wall in the source room (W), and W, is the sound power transmitted to the receiving room (W). Assuming two diffuse sound fields, eqn (6) becomes:? R=L,,— Ly, + Wlog(S/A) (7) where L,, is the sound pressure level in the source room (re 2 x 10-5 Pa), Ly, is the sound pressure level in the receiving room, Sis the area of the partition wall, and A is the total absorbing area in the receiving room. Measuring the transmitted acoustic power by means of the intensity technique, eqn (6) becomes:? R=Ly—Ly-6 dB (8)48 M.L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen 5200 5109 receiving room source room 6700 6200 Fig. 1. Ground plan of the Laboratory for Acoustics, Eindhoven University of Technology. where L,, is the sound intensity level transmitted through the partition (re 1x 107!? Wm~?). ince the measured intensity should represent the true (average) intensity radiated by the wall there are two ways to measure the radiated sound power: (1) measuring one point for each surface and making the surfaces sufficiently small (say, 10 x 10cm); or (2) measuring many points by ‘scanning’ a surface that can be much larger (say 1x 1m?). In our experiments we did not find any systematic differences between the two methods. We will use the second method because it works much faster. To show the advantages of the intensity method, we describe a sound -~“ 0 8 60 dB |. 50 dB Fig. 2. The radiated intensity levels of the partition wall at 250 Hz (one-third octave): range 50-82 4B.Building acoustics and absorbing partition wall 49 4B Pott cof so 49} 30] 20} 10} eee eerie 125 250 500k a frequency Fig. 3. The intensity radiated by the partition wall and by the flanking walls (measured with a 12mm spacer and absorption in the receiving room). —, L, partition wall; others, Ly flanking walls. insulation measurement where the contribution of flanking surfaces is taken into account. Figure | describes a laboratory situation where a partition wall (sand-lime blocks with a thickness of 0:22 m) is connected to the receiving room but not to the source room. Figure 2 shows the measured intensity level radiated by the partition wall. The wall surface (approx. 3-15 x 3-15 m2) was split up into small areas (0-5 x 0-5 m), Plots like this can give information about vibrating modes, weak spots and leakages.50 M. L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen oe 804+ 79) = 6] so| 40} 30} 20} aotttirtirtirtiiiti.rti ies 2 20, ceo. 16 2k ae He frequency Fig. 4. The measured transmission loss (022m sand-lime blocks). ——, Partition wall, intensity method: partition wall and flanking walls, intensity method; ~----, sound pressure method, In the situation of Fig. 1, the flanking walls will contribute to the sound pressure in the receiving room. Figure 3 shows the average intensity level radiated by the partition wall and the intensity levels radiated by several flanking walls. The intensity levels radiated by the flanking walls are lower than those of the partition wall, but since the total area of the flanking walls is larger, they do contribute to the sound transmission. Figure 4 shows that the measured transmission loss with the influence of flanking included is about 3 dB lower than without flanking. Figure 4 also shows that the results with flanking areBuilding acoustics and absorbing partition wall 31 in better agreement with the sound pressure method than the results without flanking. However, especially for the high and the low frequencies, there are some discrepancies. This experiment, and other measurements** have shown that the intensity method gives a systematically lower result for the low frequencies and a systematically higher result for the high frequencies. Problems One of the most important problems with the intensity method is the phase error. Small phase differences (phase mismatch) between the two channels (caused by microphones, preamplifiers and AD converters) have a relatively large influence on the imaginary part of the cross-spectrum when the phase is small. Measurements have shown that the inevitable phase mismatch gives serious problems at low frequencies in highly reactive environments, such as rooms without absorption material. For a reactivity of 10dB and a maximum phase mismatch of 0-3 degrees, using a 12mm spacer, the phase error will be 3dB at 250 Hz and 5dB at 125 Hz.” The phase error at low frequencies can be reduced by increasing the distance (AR) between the two microphones. There are two ways to deal with this problem. The first way is to measure the exact phase mismatch between the two channels, to calculate the esti- mated phase error and to subtract this error from the measurement result. The second method is to perform the measurement twice, switching the microphones and the preamplifiers between the two measurements. Since the phase errors will have opposite signs, the error will disappear when the intensity of the two measurements is averaged. However, the phase mismatch due to the analyser will remain. At the present time, the best way to deal with this phase error in practical situations is being investigated. A second problem is the finite distance approximation. When the microphone distance is not much smaller than the wavelength the measured intensity will be too low. This phenomenon forces upon us the upper limit of the frequency region.” A third problem concerns the measurement of parts of compound structures. It is not clear how the radiated sound power of a part with a low transmission loss can affect the measured intensity of a part with a high transmission loss. At the present time research is also being done on this subject. A fourth problem involved in the intensity method is the sound reflected from the receiving room to the measurement probe. This is especially important when the surface of the partition wall in the receiving room is absorbing. In the next section we will discuss some experiments and a method to estimate the error that accompanies this problem.52 M.L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen THE INFLUENCE OF AN ABSORBING PARTITION WALL The model In general, the sound power transmitted to the receiving room is: W.=1S+1F W (9) where /, is the average transmitted intensity through partition wall (Wm), J, is the average radiated intensity by flanking walls (W m~2), Sis the area of the partition wall (m7), and F is the area of the flanking walls (m7). In a stationary condition, assuming a diffuse sound field and an equally distributed absorption in the receiving room, this must be equal to: W.=1,A (10) where /, is the average diffuse field intensity incident from the room to the walls, and 4 is the total absorption in the receiving room (m7). We can then write J, as: L,=(S+ [FA ay Measuring the intensity just behind the partition wall, the result will be: 1=1,-1,+(1-o),= (12) where « is the absorption coefficient of the partition wall. Substituting (eqn (11)) gives: ISIE =) -0 13 Tatoo (13) Next, we define a ‘flanking factor’, p: B=T FILS (14) Now, the measured intensity / can be written: aS =i(1- = 15 1 (i +0) (4s) or, taking the logarithm: S 1,= Ly + Wlog(1-(1+ #925) (16) Since we are only interested in the transmitted intensity, we define the measurement deviation, AL: AL= 10toe( -0+p%) a7Building acoustics and absorbing partition wall 53 Thus we have shown that measuring the intensity just behind an absorbing wall will result in a measurement deviation that will be more pronounced when the reverberation time is long or when flanking transmission occurs. Measurements Figure 5 shows the measurement set-up. The partition wall (sand-lime blocks, 0:1m thick) is connected to the source room. In this situation flanking factor B (eqn (14)) is zero. The transmission loss of this wall was measured by the sound pressure method and the intensity method. The next step was to attach absorbing material to the receiving side of the wall, In this situation the transmission loss was also measured using both the sound pressure method and the intensity method. The latter method was used for two conditions of the receiving room: very reverberant and very absorptive. ‘The transmission loss of a building element depends primarily on its mass, stiffness and losses. Since absorbing material attached to a relatively heavy wall will barely affect any of these quantities, this material is not expected to influence the transmission loss. However, from measurements ®-? it appears that absorbing material on a partition wall gives higher values for the mm receiving room source room Fig. 5. Set-up for measurement of the transmission loss by the sound intensity method. 1. Rotating microphone. 2. B&K probe type 3519. 3. Microphone cable. 4. B&K Dual Channel Signal Analyzer type 2032. 5. Computer. 6. Diskdrive. 7. Printer/plotter. 8. Interface bus. 9. Sound source. 10, Absorbing material. 11. Flexible material.54 M. L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen 38 90 t = eG = eo} 4 i 704 4 ty [irs so} in 49] 30] goertiortiritiitistiiti RS eo 2k abou frequency 6. The increment of the transmission loss measured by the sound intensity method can be split up into owo parts, a real increment of the transmission loss and a measurement deviation. ——, Transmission loss of the bare wall (intensity method); - - - - -. transmission loss of the wall with absorbing material (intensity method); [JJ[[[{IJ), real increment of the transmission loss; 2==4, measurement deviation. transmission loss. In addition to this increment, measurement by the intensity method will show a measurement deviation according to eqn (17). We can obtain this deviation by substracting the increment of the transmission loss measured by the pressure method from the increment measured by the intensity method: AL=Ry— Ry, oa + Ro (18) where AL is the measurement deviation, and the subscripts are as follows:Building acoustics and absorbing partition wall 55 I= intensity method, p = pressure method, b = bare wall, and a= wall with absorbing material. In Fig. 6 the increment of the results obtained by the sound pressure method are added to the transmission loss (intensity method) of the bare wall. The remaining part between this line and the transmission loss of the wall with absorption material (intensity method) is the measurement deviation. This procedure was followed for two absorbing materi 10cm rockwool. In order to estimate the measurement deviation (eqn (17)) reverberation times have been measured to calculate the total absorption in the receiving room (A) and the absorption coefficient of the partition wall («). From Refs 6 and 7 we can derive that, for our measurement situation, the phase error will be more than 1 dB for frequencies under 250 Hz. In Fig. 6 we can see that, because of this phase error, peaks occur at low frequencies (160 and 200 Hz). Since we are only interested in the high frequencies (absorption of a porous material), we will omit the frequencies under 250Hz in the subsequent figures. The intensity measurements have been performed with the B & K probe no. 3519 (12mm spacer) and the B & K dual-channel analyser no. 2032. 25cm and Results and discussion The results of the transmission loss measurements are given in Figs 7, 8 and 9. Figure 7 shows the results obtained by the pressure method. Figures 8 and 9 show the results obtained by the intensity method, the former ina situation with a highly reactive receiving room, and the latter in a situation with a low reactive receiving room. The measured reactivity, Lx, for both conditions of the receiving room can be found in Figs 10 and 11. Figures 7 and 9 show a considerable effect of the absorption material on the measured transmission loss. This effect increases when the reactivity in the receiving room is high (Fig. 8). The measured increment of the transmission loss by the addition of absorption material is remarkable because one would not expect that a layer of rockwool attached to a heavy wall would influence its transmission loss, There can be two possible explanations for the improvements in transmission loss. The first explanation is that the effect is caused by the attenuation of sound passing through the absorptive layer. This mechanism can only be partly responsible for the observed effects because the improvements of the transmission loss are larger than the expected sound transmission loss of the absorptive layer itself.M.L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen 56 JOOMYDOA WOOT IPM [Lea “ * Moomyoou wo ¢.z JOOMYDOI 9g] Wu [rem ---- cea areg “woos Furtooo1 . SJoomypos wog.z yum aaowar A19A B JO 28D ay UL PoYToUE AUIsUOUE 2 24Rq “—~ ‘poyrouL aunssad punos OUR YA pamnsvow sso] uosstusuEN oy, “RB A) YUM paunsvaus sso} UoIssHUsUEN oyL “LB AoNanD3a<——— A9N3N038.<—————— Su Ab az ie auc ocr Hay xz iF ons ose Tot Tee los = los oo > oo oz 7 : oe : a 08 = ps fe ee eel ae ap37 Building acoustics and absorbing partition wall JOOMYD05 WOT JoOmyDoI wD] IE [LBA * jOOM904 WD ¢-7 quis em * HJoomyoor wos-7 yr qeM Hm [em =--- spew azeg “— -woos Busataoar Sc+2+> Sytem areg ‘— ‘wooo 3utataaas aangwas Kron, PANDOI MO] B JO 2889 aY1 UL poyroUL AusuDIUE 8 Jo aseo ay) ul AuAnovas paunseow oy “OF “Bt 2u) YIM parnseaw sso| UoIssIUUsUEN ay, “6 “BLY son3n038.2<——— AoNanD 38 << mH te Tos ase THA az os ase oye TI 08 7 iy oF s os. a 7 ox 09 4 + oe st fog a oe rity ran i 7 ptiitiit Jog ep opM. L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen 58 JOOMYDO4 WQ] parginoyea WR yen YJOOMYI0I WIEST YIM [RA “o--> spaunsrayy ‘— Joomyoor wog.z yum jen Sess rem org WOOs BUIA!9901 DANORAL MOY au Jo (Ty) UoReIAap iusWasNsROW oy, “Z] “BLY B Jo aseo ay) UI AUANDeOA paanseau ayy “Lp “BLY AON30D38 4 AoM3ND 38 = 2H Ab az ay os ose Mae rt as ose 4 4778 r 1 ° ze Lat AI 7 She o : le oo a0 ac is Ist ritiitiitiit |, 8p rien ron neBuilding acoustics and absorbing partition wall 59) da 10 TIT AL gee eee 250 500 1k 2k ‘4k He > reauency Fig. 13, The measurement deviation (AL) of the wall with 10cm rockwool. —, Measured; calculated, The second possible explanation is that the absorption material may affect the sound radiation efficiency of the partition. Figures 12 and 13 show the measured deviation and the calculated deviation from the results of the absorption measurements in the case of a high reactivity. The results of the measured and calculated deviation are in fair agreement. Detailed studies '° have shown that there are no statistically significant differences between measured and calculated deviations. However, when we look into the results of the absorption measurements (Fig. 14) we find that the reverberation time measurement gives much lower results than can be expected. An absorption measurement with the interferometer gave much higher values. Since it was expected that this had to do with the geometry of the room, some additional measurements were performed. An amount of absorbing material (5-5 m? with 0-64 m? side area included) was placed at several positions in the room. The absorbing areas calculated from the measured reverberation times (Fig. 15) show that the geometry of the room does influence the measurement result. The absorbing material attached to the partition wall gives much lower absorbing coefficients.M. L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen 1004 at} 01 paysene * [lem pus ay or paysene “> apis ayy 01 payoene *----- ‘Tem uonnaed ayy o1 poyseny *—— woos ayp ut suonisod {psanas 1e paoe|d ‘Joomy904 Jo (popnjour saSpa) ,w ¢.¢ Jo uondiosqe pasnseaw ayy “St “Bk Aouenbozy tH ow eT wus ose set or ° EI ¢ ? a}aWOIaysOVUT wou) Tx ‘----- (S089 OU *, OL) (SuWoInsroUL aun UoNeIagiaAa1 WO4)) "% *—— "JOomyI0 WH OF JO qWo!4yJa0o UoNdsosqe pamnseau ay] “pI Bld AON3ND 3a +<—___—— zhi xz AT o0s__osz TI 8 2-0 oy “0 ~ 7 +—J8°0 potistiiti itd...Building acoustics and absorbing partition wall 61 Although this phenomenon has nothing to do with the subject of this paper, it is very interesting to see that, in spite of this low absorption, the calculated deviation is almost equal to the measured deviation (Figs 12 and 13). The reason for this can be found in the fact that it is not the absorption coefficient itself we are interested in, but the sound power that is absorbed by the partition wall (eqn (12)). This is exactly what is being measured when determining the absorption by the reverberation time method. In the field, we can expect problems when we try to determine the effective amount of absorbing area since we cannot compare the reverberation time in case of a bare (reflecting) partition wall with the reverberation time in case of an absorbing wall. Using the absorption coefficients from literature can give a wrong estimation of the measurement deviation. Another problem we can expect in the field is that of determining the flanking factor f. CONCLUSIONS The intensity method provides much more information with regard to transmission paths than the sound pressure method. However there are also more difficulties to overcome. One of these difficulties, the influence of an absorbing partition wall on the measured intensity, was successfully assessed in the laboratory for frequencies between 250 and 3150 Hz. In the field, we can expect problems in obtaining reliable absorption data and estimating the flanking factor ~. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors wish to thank Professor P. A. de Lange for his valuable comments. REFERENCES 1. S.Gade, Sound intensity (Part 1: theory), Briiel & Kjaer Technical Review, no. 3, 1982. 2. ISO 140/111, Acoustics Measurement of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements, Part III: Laboratory measurements of airborne sound insulation of building elements. 3. H. J. Martin, Sound transmission rooms—a comparison, Dissertation, Eindhoven University of Technology, 1986.62 M. L. S. Vercammen, H. J. Martin, W. M. J. Cornelissen 4. R. Halliwell and A. Warnock, Sound transmission loss: comparison of conventional techniques with sound intensity techniques, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 77 (1985), pp. 2094-103. 5. A.Cops, M. Minten and H. Myncke, The use of intensity techniques and room acoustics and noise control, Proceedings FASE, Thessalonil pp. 67-84. 6. 8. Gade, K. B. Ginn, O. Roth and M. Brock, Sound power determination in highly reactive environments using sound intensity measurements, Internoise Proceedings II, 1983, pp. 1047-50. 7. 8. Gade, Validity of intensity measurements, Internoise Proceedings, 1984, pp. 1077-82. 8. F. Mechel, E. Veres and R. Smidt, Das Schalldimm-mass von absorbierend belegten Wainden und Decken, lecture at CIB Working Group 51 (building acoustics) meeting, Lisbon, 1985 (unpubl, 9. S. M. Brown, J. Niedzielski and G. R. Spalding, Effect of sound-absorptive facings on partition airborne-sound transmission loss, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 63(6) (1978), pp. 1851-6, 10. M. Vercammen, Intensiteitsmetingen in reaktieve velden aan geluidabsorberende meetobjecten, FAGO rapport no. 86.22 A. (in Dutch), Eindhoven University of Technology, 1986.