Comparison of Acoustic Performance Depending on the Location of Sound Absorptive and Diffuser in Small Auditoriums Using 1/10 Scale Models

Abstract

This study investigated how the location of sound absorptive materials and sound diffusers affects the acoustic performance of small auditoriums. It was conducted for a standard model established with the averaged dimension of 36 auditoriums which had opened since 2000 in Daehak-ro, Seoul. In this study, the installation area of finishing materials was calculated upon a back wall which had the smallest installation effective area of finishing materials. To analyze the changes of acoustic performance according to installation location of finishing materials, experiments were carried out using the 1/10 down scale models for 8 cases which were made by classifying the installation location of ceiling and side wall into the front, middle and rear part.The used acoustic parameters were reverberation time (RT), early decay time (EDT), clarity (C80), definition (D50) and speech transmission index (STI). In result, the index related to the amount of reverberant sound (RT, EDT) showed the great changes when evaluating it through just noticeable difference (JND), but the one related to clarity (C80, D50, STI) hardly indicated the changes. In case to obtain short reverberation time, it was most effective to control reverberation time through the side walls when installing sound absorptive and diffusive materials, and side wall front was the location which could get the shortest reverberation time.