Applied sciences

Archives of Acoustics

Content

Archives of Acoustics | 2016 | vol. 41 | No 2

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Abstract

The term roughness is used to describe a specific sound sensation which may occur when listening to stimuli with more than one spectral component within the same critical band. It is believed that the spectral components interact inside the cochlea, which leads to fluctuations in the neural signal and, in turn, to a sensation of roughness. This study presents a roughness model composed of two successive stages: peripheral and central. The peripheral stage models the function of the peripheral ear. The central stage predicts roughness from the temporal envelope of the signal processed by the peripheral stage. The roughness model was shown to account for the perceived roughness of various types of acoustic stimuli, including the stimuli with temporal envelopes that are not sinusoidal. It thus accounted for effects of the phase and the shape of the temporal envelope on roughness. The model performance was poor for unmodulated bandpass noise stimuli.
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Authors and Affiliations

Václav Vencovský
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Abstract

This study presents the indoor soundscape framework in detail by describing the variables and factors that form an indoor soundscape study. The main objective is to introduce a new indoor soundscaping framework and systematically explain the variables that contribute to the overall evaluation of an indoor soundscape. Hence, the dependencies of physical and psychoacoustical factors of the sound environment and the spatial factors of the built entity are statistically tested. The new indoor soundscaping framework leads to an overarching evaluation perspective of enclosed sound environments, combining objective room acoustics research and noise control engineering with architectural analysis. Therefore, it is hypothesised that case spaces with certain plan organisations, volumetric relations, and spatial referencing lead to differentiated sound pressure level (SPL) and loudness (N) values. SPL and N parametric variances of the sound environments are discussed through the statistical findings with respect to the architectural characteristics of each library case space. The results show that the relation between crowd level variances and sound environment parametric values is statistically significant. It is also found that increasing the atrium height and atrium void volume, the atrium’s presence as a common architectural element, and its interpenetrating reference and domain containment results in unwanted variances and acoustic formations, leading to high SPL and N values.
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Authors and Affiliations

Papatya Nur Dokmeci Yorukoglu
Jian Kang
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Abstract

The Chinese word identification and sentence intelligibility are evaluated by grades 3 and 5 students in the classrooms with different reverberation times (RTs) from three primary school under different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The relationships between subjective word identification and sentence in- telligibility scores and speech transmission index (STI) are analyzed. The results show that both Chinese word identification and sentence intelligibility scores for grades 3 and 5 students in the classroom in- creased with the increase of SNR (and STI), increased with the increase of the age of students, and decreased with the increase of RT. To achieve a 99% sentence intelligibility score, the STIs required for grades 3, grade 5 students, and adults are 0.71, 0.61, and 0.51, respectively. The required objective acoustical index determined by a certain threshold of the word identification test might be underestimated for younger children (grade 3 students) in classroom but overestimated for adults. A method based on the sentence test is more useful for speech intelligibility evaluation in classrooms than that based on the word test for different age groups. Younger children need more favorable classroom acoustical environment with a higher STI than older children and adults to achieve the optimum speech communication in the classroom.
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Authors and Affiliations

Jianxin Peng
Peng Jiang
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Abstract

Annoyance ratings for artificially created noises, resembling the main characteristics of temporal wind turbine noise, were studied by means of a listening experiment involving 21 participants with normal hearing. Three types of stimuli were examined: broadband noise (−4 dB/octave), noise generated by moving cars, and narrowband noise. All stimuli had the sound level fluctuations typical for wind turbine noise. The magnitude of the sound level fluctuations was measured in a quantitative way, by using the characteristics of amplitude modulated sound: modulation rate and modulation depth. Our aim was to examine how the modulation rate and the modulation depth influence the noise annoyance assessment of broadband and narrowband amplitude modulated noises. Three different modulation rates, 1, 2 and 4 Hz, and sound level fluctuations (a measure of the modulation depth), 3, 6, 9 dB, were applied to each type of stimuli (with exception of noise generated by the moving cars) and investigated. The participants in the listening experiment were presented with sound stimuli in laboratory conditions and asked to rate their annoyance on a numerical scale. The results have shown a significant difference between the investigated conditions. The effect was particularly strong between the annoyance judgments of different types of noise (narrow and broadband), and modulated versus unmodulated noises. Temporal fluctuations occurring in wind turbine noise are very pertinent to the perception of annoyance and could be responsible for its being a relatively annoying noise source. The obtained results were discussed and compared to the typical modulation rates and level changes that occur in recordings of real wind turbine noise.
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Authors and Affiliations

Honorata Hafke-Dys
Tomasz Kaczmarek
Anna Preis
Adam Biniakowski
Paweł Kleka
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Abstract

In this article the authors investigated and presented the experiments on the sentence boundaries annotation from Polish speech using acoustic cues as a source of information. The main result of the investigation is an algorithm for detection of the syntactic boundaries appearing in the places of punctuation marks. In the first stage, the algorithm detects pauses and divides a speech signal into segments. In the second stage, it verifies the configuration of acoustic features and puts hypotheses of the positions of punctuation marks. Classification is performed with parameters describing phone duration and energy, speaking rate, fundamental frequency contours and frequency bands. The best results were achieved for Naive Bayes classifier. The efficiency of the algorithm is 52% precision and 98% recall. Another significant outcome of the research is statistical models of acoustic cues correlated with punctuation in spoken Polish.
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Authors and Affiliations

Magdalena Igras
Bartosz Ziółko
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Abstract

Subspace-based methods have been effectively used to estimate enhanced speech from noisy speech samples. In the traditional subspace approaches, a critical step is splitting of two invariant subspaces associated with signal and noise via subspace decomposition, which is often performed by singular-value decomposition or eigenvalue decomposition. However, these decomposition algorithms are highly sensitive to the presence of large corruptions, resulting in a large amount of residual noise within enhanced speech in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations. In this paper, a joint low-rank and sparse matrix decomposition (JLSMD) based subspace method is proposed for speech enhancement. In the proposed method, we firstly structure the corrupted data as a Toeplitz matrix and estimate its effective rank value for the underlying clean speech matrix. Then the subspace decomposition is performed by means of JLSMD, where the decomposed low-rank part corresponds to enhanced speech and the sparse part corresponds to noise signal, respectively. An extensive set of experiments have been carried out for both of white Gaussian noise and real-world noise. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs better than conventional methods in many types of strong noise conditions, in terms of yielding less residual noise and lower speech distortion.
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Authors and Affiliations

Chengli Sun
Jianxiao Xie
Yan Leng
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Abstract

The aim of this work was to measure subjective speech intelligibility in an enclosure with a long reverberation time and comparison of these results with objective parameters. Impulse Responses (IRs) were first determined with a dummy head in different measurement points of the enclosure. The following objective parameters were calculated with Dirac 4.1 software: Reverberation Time (RT), Early Decay Time (EDT), weighted Clarity (C50) and Speech Transmission Index (STI). For the chosen measurement points, a convolution of the IRs with the Polish Sentence Test (PST) and logatome tests was made. PST was presented at a background of a babble noise and speech reception threshold - SRT (i.e. SNR yielding 50% speech intelligibility) for those points were evaluated. A relationship of the sentence and logatome recognition vs. STI was determined. It was found that the final SRT data are well correlated with speech transmission index (STI), and can be expressed by a psychometric function. The difference between SRT determined in condition without reverberation and in reverberation conditions appeared to be a good measure of the effect of reverberation on speech intelligibility in a room. In addition, speech intelligibility, with and without use of the sound amplification system installed in the enclosure, was compared.
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Authors and Affiliations

Jędrzej Kociński
Edward Ozimek
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Abstract

An acoustic emission method (AE) is widespread and often applied for partial discharge (PD) diagnostics, mainly due to its ease of application as well as noninvasiveness and relatively high sensitivity. This paper presents comparative analysis of AE signals measurement results archived under laboratory conditions as well as on-site actual AE signals generated by inside PDs in electrical power transformer during its normal service. Three different PD model sources are applied for laboratory research: point to point, multipoint to plate and surface type. A typical measuring set up commonly used for on-site transformer PD diagnostics is provided for the laboratory tasks: piezoelectric joint transducer, preamplifier, amplifier and measuring PC interface. During the on-site research there are three measuring tracks applied simultaneously. Time domain, time-frequency domain and statistical tools are used for registered AE signals analysis. A number of descriptors are proposed as a result of the analysis. In the paper, at- tempt of AE signals descriptors, archived under laboratory condition application possibilities for on-site PD diagnostics of power transformers during normal service is made.
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Authors and Affiliations

Michał Kunicki
Andrzej Cichoń
Sebastian Borucki
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Abstract

Transmission of vibroacoustic energy from an internal combustion engine (ICE) to its surroundings largely depends on how it is mounted, on available transmission paths and on the construction of the vehicle body and/or its surrounding structures. This is especially true in low speed engines in enclosed areas which generate perceptually weak noise, but strong low-frequency waves which energy has a negative impact on human health, comfort and driving safety especially in prolonged exposure to the source. The primary aim of the article was to analyse components of the ICE unit which had a determining impact on the reduction of low-frequency waves. Thus, the structurally transmitted noise from the ICE to its surrounding structure (body of the passenger vehicle) was analysed. The results of the vibroacoustic measurements were compared to modal analysis in order to determine possible resonance sources in the vehicle body and/or for assessing the influence of the vehicles safety gear on the generated vibroacoustic energy transfer into the cabin area of the passenger vehicle. Measurements were made for a passenger vehicle at rest and operating in its most common operational speed as well as for the stationary ICE of a cogenerate unit (CGU). Measurements and FFT analysis were used for the detection of the vibroacoustic energy sound pressure level (noise) and mechanical vibration. Firstly, the low-frequency noise sources were determined and their direct effects on the human body were investigated. Finally, this paper suggests some measures which may contribute to the reduction of undesirable vibroacoustic energy in enclosed areas.
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Authors and Affiliations

Stanislav Žiaran
Ondrej Chlebo
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Abstract

This paper describes the development phases of a numerical-experimental integrated approach aimed at obtaining sufficiently accurate predictions of the noise field emitted by an external gear pump by means of some vibration measurements on its external casing. Harmonic response methods and vibroacoustic analyses were considered as the main tools of this methodology. FFT acceleration spectra were experimentally acquired only in some positions of a 8.5 cc/rev external gear pump casing for some working conditions and considered as external excitation boundary conditions for a FE quite simplified vibroacoustic model. The emitted noise field was computed considering the pump as a ‘black box’, without taking into account the complex dynamics of the gear tooth meshing process and the consequent fluid pressure and load distribution. Sound power tests, based on sound intensity measurements, as well as sound pressure measurements in some positions around the pump casing were performed for validation purposes. The comparisons between numerical and experimental results confirmed the potentiality of this approach in offering a good compromise between noise prediction accuracy and reduction of experimental and modelling requirements.
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Authors and Affiliations

Eleonora Carletti
Giuseppe Miccoli
Francesca Pedrielli
Giorgio Parise
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Abstract

In the paper, a noise map service designated for the user interested in environmental noise is presented. Noise prediction algorithm and source model, developed for creating acoustic maps, are working in the cloud computing environment. In the study, issues related to the noise modelling of sound propagation in urban spaces are discussed with a particular focus on traffic noise. Examples of results obtained through a web application created for that purpose are shown. In addition, these are compared to results obtained from the commercial software simulations based on two road noise prediction models. Moreover, the computing performance of the developed application is investigated and analyzed. In the paper, a flowchart simulating the operation of the noise web-based service is presented showing that the created application is easy to use even for people with little experience in computer technology.
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Authors and Affiliations

Karolina Marciniuk
Bożena Kostek
Maciej Szczodrak
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Abstract

Simultaneous propagation of vibrations and noise has an important role in the task of minimizing vibroacoustic hazards on the station of operator of the construction machinery. In many cases vibrations transferred by the construction are processed to noise in different points of the machine. As a result, they may increase the level of noise at the workplace. The paper presents the proposition of a simple estimation of noise and vibration propagation paths of the machine. On the basis of the analysis of hydraulic excavator an effectiveness of a proposed procedure was shown. This procedure helps to minimize the transfer of vibrations of power unit in selected frequency ranges which led to the change of overall noise level in operator’s cab about 5 dB.
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Authors and Affiliations

Zbigniew Dąbrowski
Jacek Dziurdź
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Abstract

The paper presents two theoretical models for traffic noise level distribution on curved horizontal roads. In the case of vehicles moving on a given route, one can consider, in terms of sound field, that the granular traffic is equivalent for short periods with a quasi-continuous noise flow. When computing and modelling the noise level generated by traffic on roads with complex trajectory, it is common to treat the route as a sum of small length road segments, each being assimilated with a linear noise source. This paper started from the assumption that the route can be decomposed into a sequence of linear and arc-shaped road segments, each of which is treated as a linear respectively curved noise source. An arc-shaped road segment is modelled by a tubular vibrating surface, of circular or rectangular section. In the case of rectangular section, the vibrating blade emits complex sounds on its both vertical sides and the generated sound field can be described more clearly, qualitatively and quantitatively, through intensity distribution. The theoretical models presented in the paper have direct application to the traffic noise prediction and noise maps drawing
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Authors and Affiliations

Diana Ioana Popescu
Ioan Cosma
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Abstract

The active noise-reducing casing developed and promoted by the authors in recent publications have multiple advantages over other active noise control methods. When compared to classical solutions, it allows for obtaining global reduction of noise generated by a device enclosed in the casing. Moreover, the system does not require loudspeakers, and much smaller actuators attached to the casing walls are used instead. In turn, when compared to passive casings, the walls can be made thinner, lighter and with much better thermal transfer than sound-absorbing materials. For active noise control a feedforward structure is usually used. However, it requires an in-advance reference signal, which can be difficult to be acquired for some applications. Fortunately, usually the dominant noise components are due to rotational operations of the enclosed device parts, and thus they are tonal and multitonal. Therefore, it can be adequately predicted and the Internal Model Control structure can be used to benefit from algorithms well developed for feedforward systems. The authors have already tested that approach for a rigid casing, where interaction of the walls was significantly reduced. In this paper the idea is further explored and applied for a light-weight casing, more frequently met in practice, where each vibrating wall of the casing influences all the other walls. The system is verified in laboratory experiments.
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Authors and Affiliations

Krzysztof Mazur
Marek Pawełczyk
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Abstract

The paper presents results of research on an influence of listening fatigue on the detection of changes in spectrum and envelope of musical samples. The experiment was carried out under conditions which normally exist in a studio or on the stage when sound material is recorded and/or mixed. The equivalent level of presented sound samples is usually 90 dB and this is an average value of sound level existing in control room at various recording activities. Such musical material may be treated as a noise so Temporary Threshold Shift phenomenon may occur after several sessions and this may lead to a listening fatigue effect. Fourteen subjects participated in the first part of the experiment and all of them have the normal hearing thresholds. The stimuli contained the musical material with introduced changes in sound spectrum up to ±6 dB in low (100 Hz), middle (1 kHz) and high frequency (10 kHz) octave bands. In the second part of research five subjects listened to musical samples with introduced envelope changes up to ±6 dB in interval of 1 s. The time of loud music exposure was 60, 90 and 120 minutes and this material was completely different from the tested samples. It turned out that listening to the music with an Leq = 90 dB for 1 hour influences the hearing thresholds for middle frequency region (about 1-2 kHz) and this has been reflected in a perception of spectral changes. The perceived peaks/notches of 3 dB have the detection ability at 70% and the changes of low and high ranges of spectrum were perceived at the similar level. After the longer exposure, the thresholds shifted up to 4.5 dB for the all investigated stimuli. It has been also found that hearing fatigue after 1 hour of a listening influences the perception of envelope which gets worse of 2 dB in comparison to the fresh-ear listening. When time of listening to the loud music increases, the changes in envelopes which can be detected rise to the value of 6 dB after 90-minutes exposure and it does not increase with further prolongation of listening time.
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Authors and Affiliations

Maurycy J. Kin
Andrzej Dobrucki
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Abstract

In parallel to the ultrasonic noise assessment procedures and research activity in the field there have appeared several papers in the domain of so called high-frequency audiometry which covers the range of frequencies 8-20 kHz. They are important for recognizing the harmfulness and hazard of the audible high frequency sound components in the same range as the one of the low frequency ultrasonic noise. On the other hand there exists a certain inconsequent situation in the general approach to the problem of ultrasonic noise hazard assessment in work places environment which concerns the convention to include the frequency range of 10-20 kHz to the domain of ultrasonics. The range consists of one third octave bands of central frequencies: 10, 12.5, 16, 20 kHz and conventionally is called low frequency ultrasonic noise though at least the components of the two lowest bands are naturally audible by a majority of population (mainly young people).The paper presents a discussion related to some achievements of the two domains and some conclusions which could be useful for a more consequent description of the subject and could be taken into account in the future regulations for the ultrasonic noise assessment in work places environment.
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Authors and Affiliations

Antoni Śliwiński
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Abstract

This work is a contribution to a normative approach of noise assessment in the professional environment. It permits the identification of the affected workstations on the one hand and on the other hand it constitutes an important support to the preoccupations of the impact study on the environment in plants. It also informs us on the adequate preparation of the procedures required by the Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) being implemented in steel-making complex ArcelorMittal Algeria. It constitutes an answer to the recommended environmental politics. The proposed calculation methods are verified according to the recognized sources (ISO 9612, 2009) and the results will be estimated in relation to the legal thresholds recommended by international bodies. The methodology for measuring the noise exposure levels has been done according to the following steps: work analysis; selection of measurement strategy; measurements; error handling and uncertainty evaluations; calculations; and presentation of results. This will lead us to an implementation of a corrective and preventive action plan intended to master this occupational risk carrying prejudice to the health of the workers.
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Authors and Affiliations

Wahiba Meddeb
Kamel Tadjine
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Abstract

The paper presents the possible applications of using acoustic diagnostics in inspecting the technical condition of an internal combustion engine with autoignition on the example of the Fiat drive unit with common rail system. As a result of measuring the sound pressure level for specific faults and comparing the noise generated by the motor running smoothly, the detailed maps of changes in the acoustic spectrum are possible to generate. These results may be helpful in the future diagnostics of internal combustion engines. In the paper, the results of scientific work in the area of research, design and operation of internal combustion engines, conducted at the Department of Automotive Engineering, in cooperation with the Laboratory of Hydraulic Drives & Vibroacoustics of Machines at the Wroclaw University of Technology are included.
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Authors and Affiliations

Adam Deptuła
Dariusz Kunderman
Piotr Osiński
Urszula Radziwanowska
Radosław Włostowski

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