An experimental investigation on the directional distribution of incident energy for the prediction of sound transmission loss

Abstract

It is suggested from a previous theoretical study that an angular distribution function can be successfully used for describing the directional distribution of incident energy on the wall, instead of the field incidence assumption being used in the prediction of sound transmission loss. This study is devoted to an experimental investigation on the directionality of incidence sound field for validating the underlying assumption in the theoretical work. To this end, the directional magnitudes of incident energy on a wall in a reverberation chamber are measured by employing the sound intensimetry. The experimental results suggest that the transmission coefficient formula should be revised by introducing a proper angular distribution function as a weighting function for describing the directional energy density distribution, which replaces the conventional field incidence method. The revised formula is applied to the prediction of transmission loss for a double-leaf panel with an air cavity, in which its effectiveness is strongly supported by good agreements between measured and predicted values.