Abstract
Palatal clicks are most interesting for human echolocation. Moreover, these sounds are suitable for other acoustic applications due to their regular mathematical properties and reproducibility. Simple and nondestructive techniques, bioinspired by synthetized pulses whose form reproduces the best features of palatal clicks, can be developed. The use of synthetic palatal pulses also allows detailed studies of the real possibilities of acoustic human echolocation without the problems associated with subjective individual differences. These techniques are being applied to the study of wood. As an example, a comparison of the performance of both natural and synthetic human echolocation to identify three different species of wood is presented. The results show that human echolocation has a vast potential.
Highlights
Acoustic techniques have been shown to be an invaluable tool for the study of many types of materials
The following acoustical parameters were measured from the waveform and spectrum of every pulse: time duration, number of relative maxima, maximum wave amplitude, minimum wave amplitude, first frequency band, second frequency band, third frequency band, raise time from 0 to maximum amplitude and average intensity of the pulse
Acoustic intensity is calculated by the Praat program using the mean value of the intensity curve in dB, with values in dB SPL, dB relative to 2 × 10−5 Pa
Summary
Acoustic techniques have been shown to be an invaluable tool for the study of many types of materials. Wood is an excellent material to test the limitations and potential of noninvasive acoustic methods due to its complexity and availability [1]. Most currently used methods work in the ultrasonic range, [2, 3]. Measurement of acoustic properties of porous materials with impedance tubes is a powerful common procedure. Other techniques have been developed for determining the properties of porous materials, mainly laser vibrometry and acoustic excitation based methods [9]. The use of impedance tubes is not suitable for real time monitoring of wood properties in harsh environments like sawmills or for inspecting large wood structures noninvasively
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