A further study on coherence between virtual signal and physical signals in remote acoustic sensing (L).

A recent paper by Zhang, Wang, Duan, Tao, Zou, and Qiu [(2022). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 152, 2840-2848] proposed that the average distance between physical microphones in remote acoustic sensing should be no larger than half the wavelength to ensure the coherence between the virtual signal and physical signals no less than 0.9 in complex sound fields. In this letter, the effects of the sound sources' distance on the coherence between the virtual signal and physical signals are further investigated, and it is found that the required average distance among physical microphones becomes smaller when sound sources are closer to the microphones.

Active control of sound transmission through a floor-level slit.

The floor-level slit between the door and the floor is one weak point in building noise insulation. In this paper, an active noise control system is proposed to reduce the sound transmission through a floor-level slit with evenly distributed secondary sources on its top boundary. The system performance is first investigated based on the analytical and numerical models, and simulation results indicate a decrease in active control performance with increasing frequency. The upper limit frequency of 10 dB effective control increases with a higher number of secondary sources, and the corresponding wavelength of the upper limit frequency is approximately the interval between the secondary sources when a plane wave is incident normally. Although the upper limit frequency decreases with the slit height, it approaches a constant when the slit height becomes significantly smaller than the wavelength in the incident sound. The experimental results based on a typical floor-level door slit support the findings in the numerical simulations. For a slit with a width of 0.9 m and a height of 0.005 m, the upper limit frequency of 10 dB noise reduction can reach up to 2830 Hz when ten secondary sources are employed in the experiments.

Transmission loss and directivity of sound transmitted through a slit on ground.

An analytical model is proposed for sound transmission through a slit on a rigid ground based on the modal superposition method to investigate the transmission loss (TL). A simple formula is derived for estimation of the TL for plane waves with and without the ground, which gives a more precise prediction than existing approaches. It is found that a larger slit height generally decreases the TL, except at the resonant frequencies of the slit. The slit width has little effect on the TL at high frequencies, and the slit depth affects the resonant frequencies significantly even though it has little effect on the overall TL. Compared with the same size slit in the free field, the rigid ground reduces the TL at most frequencies, and that reduction is a constant between 3 and 9 dB in the low frequency range. It is also found that the sound transmitted through the slit is almost omnidirectional at low frequencies, while most of the sound energy at high frequencies falls within the range where the long side of the slit is located. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the analytical model and the findings in numerical simulations.

A study on coherence between virtual signal and physical signals in remote acoustic sensing.

Remote acoustic sensing can be used to estimate the error signals in human ears without placing any physical microphones there. In this paper, the coherence between the signals picked up by physical microphones over a sphere surface and the signal obtained at the sphere center is investigated. Based on the multiple channel coherence formulas in the time domain and frequency domain, the relationship between the coherence and the placement of physical microphones is analyzed by numerical simulations first, then the experimental results obtained in a reverberation chamber and a car cabin are presented to verify the simulation results. Finally, a placement of physical microphones for active control of road noise in car cabins is discussed. Both the numerical and experimental results show that an upper limit frequency exists for accurate sound pressure estimation at the center of a sphere with the sound pressure on the sphere surface. For a sufficiently complex sound field such as that in a reverberation room or in a car, half the wavelength of the upper limit frequency is about the average distance among the physical microphones.

Improving the performance of an active staggered window with multiple resonant absorbers.

The active noise control (ANC) technique has been applied in staggered windows to improve the noise reduction at low frequencies. The control performance of such a system deteriorates significantly at some frequencies where the secondary source cannot radiate effectively due to the reflection at the boundaries of the staggered window. A resonant absorber consisting of a perforated panel and coiled up tubes is proposed to solve the problem. By designing a combination of different absorbers, a proper sound absorption coefficient is achieved around the ineffective frequency. Numerical simulations show that the active sound power reduction increases by 13.5 dB at the frequency with the absorbers attached on one end of the staggered window, and the overall sound power reduction between 100 and 500 Hz increases from 25.9 to 31.2 dB. Attaching the sound absorbers elsewhere in the upstream of the secondary source, for example, on the side walls of the duct also works. The active sound power reduction at 435 Hz increases by 6.3 dB after attaching the absorbers in the experiments, and the noise reduction increment at the evaluation point is 13.6 dB, which agrees with simulation results and demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed sound absorbers.

Ultra-sparse metamaterials absorber for broadband low-frequency sound with free ventilation.

An absorptive device for broadband low-frequency sound with ventilation is essential but challenging in acoustic engineering, which is subjected to the narrow-band limitation and difficulty of balancing high-efficiency absorption and excellent ventilation. Here, we have theoretically and experimentally demonstrated an ultra-sparse (with filling ratio of 53.7%) broadband metamaterial absorber which can efficiently absorb (absorptance >90%) sound energy ranging from 307 to 341 Hz, while enabling air to flow freely. The broadband absorber is constructed by parallel coupling four ventilated metamaterials absorbers (VMAs) showing different operating frequencies. Each VMA is composed of three folded Fabry-Pérot resonators as paste components, which are patched subsequently to the walls of a waveguide and correspondingly act as dark, middle, and bright modes following the coupled mode theory. In the VMA, the dark mode is highly over-damped to absorb sound energy, while the bright mode is highly under-damped to be an effective acoustic soft boundary, and the middle mode in-between should be slightly over-damped to strengthen the absorptions. Further investigation demonstrates that broadband high-efficiency absorption is robust against oblique incident angles. The proposed VMA provides a clear scheme for efficiently absorbing low-frequency sound while allowing free air flow simultaneously, which may prompt versatile applications in noise control.

Broadband noise insulation of windows using coiled-up silencers consisting of coupled tubes.

It has been demonstrated that a staggered window achieves better noise reduction performance than a traditional single glazing one at middle to high frequencies while maintaining a degree of natural ventilation. There is, however, little improvement in the low frequency range. In contrast, this work proposes to apply coiled-up silencers consisting of coupled tubes on the side walls of staggered windows to obtain noise attenuation in a broad band, especially in the low frequency range. Each element in the silencer consists of two coupled tubes with different cross sections so that noise at more frequencies can be attenuated than that with a uniform cross section. The simulation results show that 8.8 dB overall insertion loss can be obtained between 100 and 500 Hz after applying a combination of silencers designed at 7 different frequencies, and the insertion loss of the staggered window is increased from 6.7 to 15.6 dBA between 100 and 2000 Hz for normal incident traffic noise with the proposed silencers installed. The design is validated by the experiments with a 1:4 scale down model.

Dual frequency sound absorption with an array of shunt loudspeakers.

Transformer noise is dominated by low frequency components, which are hard to be controlled with traditional noise control approaches. The shunt loudspeaker consisting of a closed-box loudspeaker and a shunt circuit has been proposed as an effective sound absorber by storing and dissipating the electrical energy converted from the incident sound. In this paper, an array of shunt loudspeakers is proposed to control the 100 Hz and 200 Hz components of transformer noise. The prototype under tests has a thickness of 11.8 cm, which is only 1/28 of the wavelength of 100 Hz. The sound absorption performance of the array under random incidence is analyzed with the parallel impedance method, and the arrangement of array elements is optimized. The test results in a reverberation room show that the proposed array has sound absorption coefficients of 1.04 and 0.93 at 100 Hz and 200 Hz, respectively, which provides potential of applying this type of thin absorbers for low-frequency sound control.

The performance of active noise control systems on ground with two parallel reflecting surfaces.

This paper investigates the performance of active noise control (ANC) systems with two reflecting surfaces that are placed vertically on ground in parallel. It employs the modal expansion method and the boundary element method to calculate the noise reduction of the systems with infinitely large and finite size reflecting surfaces, respectively. Both experimental and simulation results show that the noise reduction of the system can be significantly increased after optimizing the surface separation distance and their locations with the sound sources. It is found that the sound radiation of the primary source can be completely reduced in principle if the surface interval is less than half the wavelength and the source line is perpendicular to the surfaces for infinitely large reflecting surfaces. Even with finite size ones, the noise reduction performance improvement is still significant compared with those without any reflecting surfaces. For example, for an ANC system with a source distance of 0.074 m, experiments achieve an improvement of 8.6 dB at 800 Hz where two 0.2 m × 0.2 m parallel reflecting surfaces are placed with a distance of 0.15 m around the system on ground. The mechanisms for the performance improvement are discussed.

A near-field error sensing strategy for compact multi-channel active sound radiation control in free field.

Noise reduction performance of a compact active sound radiation control system is significantly affected by locations of the error microphones which are required to be installed near the primary source. In this paper, near-field error sensing for multi-channel active radiation control systems in free field is investigated, and it is found that the optimal locations of error sensors for minimizing the sum of squared sound pressure are between the primary source and the secondary sources distributed uniformly on a sphere surface surrounding the primary source. Both simulation and experiment results show that the optimal locations of error microphones are independent of the type of primary source when there are sufficient secondary sources. These optimal locations remain unchanged at low frequencies and move toward secondary sources when the secondary source number increases. Therefore, for active radiation control applications in low frequency range, a compact multi-channel system can be developed by locating error microphones between the primary source and secondary sources.

A boundary error sensing arrangement for virtual sound barriers to reduce noise radiation through openings.

Previous work has demonstrated that sound radiation through a cavity opening can be reduced with secondary sources at the edge of the opening, but the error microphones are implemented over the entire opening, which might affect the natural ventilation, lighting, and especially the access through the opening in some applications. A boundary error sensing arrangement is proposed and investigated in this paper. It is found that a double-layer error microphone arrangement achieves better performance than a single-layer one. Although its performance is not as good as the arrangement with error microphones distributed over the entire opening, it is preferable in some applications because it does not block the opening. It is also found that there exists an upper-limit frequency for the systems with error microphones installed at the edge, which is related to the size of the opening and can be increased by adding more layers of error microphones at the edge. This work demonstrates the possibility of developing an almost invisible virtual sound barrier system that can block sound transmission through an opening without affecting its functionalities.

Increasing the performance of active noise control systems on ground with two vertical reflecting surfaces with an included angle.

This paper investigates the feasibility of increasing the noise reduction performance of active noise control (ANC) systems on ground by introducing two vertical reflecting surfaces with an included angle. By using the image source method, the theory of sound wave propagation in a wedge-shaped reflector and the integral equation method, the noise reduction of the ANC systems with two infinitely large or finite size reflecting surfaces with different included angles are studied. It is demonstrated that the noise reduction of the system can be increased significantly with two reflecting surfaces after optimizing their included angle and size. The simple empirical formulas for the optimal included angle of the surfaces and the noise reduction are presented. It is found that the noise reduction at 500 Hz increases by 13.6 dB when two vertical reflecting surfaces are arranged with an optimal angle of 125° and the source distance is 0.1 m. By optimizing the size of the reflecting surfaces to about 0.35 of the wavelength, the noise reduction can be further increased by approximately 2.8 dB. The mechanisms for the performance improvement are disclosed, and the experiments are conducted to validate the results.

Mechanisms of active control of sound radiation from an opening with boundary installed secondary sources.

Previous work has demonstrated that installing secondary sources at the edge of a cavity opening can reduce sound radiation through it, but the mechanisms are not clear, which is investigated in this paper by using the modal decomposition method. It is found that a double layer edge system achieves better performance than a single layer system because secondary sources at the edge of the same layer cannot excite some modes effectively and those at different heights compensate this. There exists an upper limit frequency for the systems with boundary installed secondary sources, which is mainly decided by the length of the short side of the opening. More secondary source layers at the edge will increase the upper limit frequency.

Controlling sound radiation through an opening with secondary loudspeakers along its boundaries.

We propose a virtual sound barrier system that blocks sound transmission through openings without affecting access, light and air circulation. The proposed system applies active control technique to cancel sound transmission with a double layered loudspeaker array at the edge of the opening. Unlike traditional transparent glass windows, recently invented double-glazed ventilation windows and planar active sound barriers or any other metamaterials designed to reduce sound transmission, secondary loudspeakers are put only along the boundaries of the opening, which provides the possibility to make it invisible. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate its feasibility for broadband sound control, especially for low frequency sound which is usually hard to attenuate with existing methods.

Performance of a planar virtual sound barrier at the baffled opening of a rectangular cavity.

This paper proposes to reduce the radiation of a sound source inside a cavity through the baffled opening by using an array of loudspeakers and microphones. The system is called a planar virtual sound barrier because it acts like a concrete sound barrier to block the transmission of sound but does not affect light and air circulation. An analytical model for the planar virtual sound barrier is developed based on the modal superposition method to calculate the sound field in and outside a rectangular cavity with a baffled opening. After the model is verified with numerical simulations, a performance study of the planar virtual sound barrier is carried out based on the proposed analytical model, and then the results are confirmed by experiments. The mechanisms of the planar virtual sound barrier are investigated and it is found that three mechanisms work together in the system, including changing the impedance of the primary source, modal control, and modal rearrangement. It is also found that there exist some frequencies where the sound cannot be controlled if all the secondary sources are on the same plane parallel to the opening, and the reasons behind the phenomenon are explained.

Sound absorption of a finite micro-perforated panel backed by a shunted loudspeaker.

Deep back cavities are usually required for micro-perforated panel (MPP) constructions to achieve good low frequency absorption. To overcome the problem, a close-box loudspeaker with a shunted circuit is proposed to substitute the back wall of the cavity of the MPP constructions to constitute a composite absorber. Based on the equivalent circuit model, the acoustic impedance of the shunted loudspeaker is formulated first, then a prediction model of the sound absorption of the MPP backed by shunted loudspeaker is developed by employing the mode solution of a finite size MPP coupled by an air cavity with an impendence back wall. The MPP absorbs mid to high frequency sound, and with properly adjusted electrical parameters of its shunted circuit, the shunted loudspeaker absorbs low frequency sound, so the composite absorber provides a compact solution to broadband sound control. Numerical simulations and experiments are carried out to validate the model.