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Remind Me About The DB

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10 views10 pages

Remind Me About The DB

Uploaded by

vliegendevogel7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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RESEARCH GROUP WAVES

Remind me about the dB


Prof. Dr. ir. Dick Botteldooren

Partner Logo 1 Partner Logo 2 Partner Logo 3 Partner Logo 4


SOUND
̶ The acoustic wave:
̶ Transport of energy (and information), no matter
̶ In a fluid (e.g. air): longitudinal wave
̶ Density fluctuations
̶ Pressure fluctuations
̶ Fluctuations in position and speed of air parcels
̶ Even temperature fluctuations

2
STRENGTH OF SOUND
̶ The acoustic pressure fluctuates around the atmospheric pressure

pressure
Atmospheric pressure

time

̶ How do we characterize its strength?


̶ Effective value (or root mean square, RMS)

√
𝑡2
1
𝑝 𝑟𝑚𝑠= ∫
𝑡 2 −𝑡 1 𝑡
2
𝑝 ( 𝑡 ) 𝑑𝑡
1

mean
3
STRENGTH OF SOUND
̶ Why use dB?
̶ dB for different quantities
̶ p: sound pressure
‒ pressure acts on the ear drum and creates a sensation of sound
‒ pressure is detected by (most) microphones
̶ I: sound intensity
‒ acoustic energy per unit time and per unit surface
‒ describes the physical strength of a sound wave
̶ W: sound power
‒ Characterizes a sound source by its total energy emitted per unit time

4
STRENGTH OF SOUND
̶ Definitions I ~ p2 I~W

I p W
Li  10 log Lp  20 log Lw  10 log
I0 p0 W0
sound intensity level sound pressure level sound power level

̶ Reference values

p0 = 20 µPa = hearing threshold at 1000 Hz  0dB is limit of audibility

I0 = 1 pW/m2 = intensity in a plane wave with p0  Lp = LI in free field

W0 = 1 pW

5
CALCULATING WITH DB
̶ Combined sound pressure level of several sounds
• add physical quantities!
• for incoherent sound, add p2

70 d
70

B
dB

total level?

6
CALCULATING WITH DB
̶ Why do we add p2 For incoherent sounds?
̶ Ear is triggered by the sum of p but rms-value in dB definition
the line indicates
averaging

multiplication of these two signals


fluctuates around zero  average = 0

̶ And how about coherent sound?

7
E.G. CARS AND TRAFFIC
̶ Assume LW = sound power level of an average vehicle on the road
̶ N vehicles together produce an overall sound power level of
LW+10log(N) 116
HW: 120 km/h
114

Sound Power Level (100m in dBA)


̶ But “fortunately” 112
110
HW: 110 km/h

108 HW: 100 km/h

traffic jams … 106


104
HW: 90 km/h

102 MR: 90 km/h


100 MR: 80 km/h
98
96 MR: 70 km/h
94 LR: 60 km/h
92
90 LR: 50 km/h
88 LR: 40 km/h
86
LR: 30 km/h
84
20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 110%

Number of vehicles (as percentage of total capacity)


8
ATTENUATION AND AMPLIFICATION
̶ How is attenuation (or amplification) of sound reflected in dB?
̶ e.g. Consider a simple model for decrease in sound intensity with
distance
𝑊
𝐼= 2
4𝜋𝑑

and in dB
-

- - 11

9
EXERCISES
̶ Try to reproduce these results Decrease of sound
intensity level with
Adding two incoherent
distance
sounds, 7 examples
L1 L2 Ltotal Adding four
LW 103
70 70 73.0 incoherent sounds d (m) LI
70 60 70.4 sound L 1 92
70 50 70.0 1 63 10 72
55 56 58.5 2 66 20 66
55 57 59.1 3 52 100 52
55 58 59.8 4 58 200 46
55 59 60.5 total 68.3 1000 32
10

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