Benchmarking of finite-difference time-domain method and fast multipole boundary element method for room acoustics

Abstract

Compared to geometrical acoustics, wave-based methods which solve the wave equation either in the time domain or in the frequency domain are known for their high accuracy. However, their systematic use as professional room acoustic simulation tools is less popular due to the modelling effort and computational time requirements, especially in the case of complex scenarios. This paper aims at providing guidelines for the use of two wave-based methods in complex room acoustics simulations, namely the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and the fast multipole boundary element method (FMBEM). Numerical experiments are conducted to address the convergence issues of the two solvers, more specifically, the selection of the convergence tolerance of the iterative solver in FMBEM and the temporal sampling frequency in FDTD. To evaluate the capability of the solvers in simulating complex scenarios, five cases with increasing complexity of material input data are presented. The results show that both solvers give close predictions for various room acoustics parameters. In addition, an uncertainty sensitivity study is performed in a case where experimental data is available. Large deviations between measured and simulated reverberation time reveal that typical material data-sets poorly represent the behaviour of real materials in a room acoustics context. Lastly, the efficiency of the two solvers is discussed. With parallelization implemented, both solvers can simulate sizeable room acoustic problems with good accuracy within a reasonable time.