Use of the student edition of ACTRAN in acoustics education

Abstract

The power of computation has changed the way problems are solved in acoustics, and students should be trained to have an adequate background in modern techniques and software packages to simulate noise and vibration. Universities often cannot provide industrial-grade packages for their students due to the cost limitations. But recently a student version of a modern acoustics computation package was released, Student Edition of ACTRAN. This tool lets students solve a wide variety of problems using finite elements and infinite elements. This talk will describe the software and how it was used in a graduate level course in computational acoustics. Two examples that will be shown include finding the modes of an irregularly shaped room and computing the acoustic radiation from a gearbox. But it is clear that this software can be used in many different ways, for both undergraduate and graduate acoustics education. Instructors can demonstrate acoustical phenomena for students not adept at using the software themselves, easily visualizing the physics involved in acoustics with the Student Edition of ACTRAN. The software is free for downloading from http://www.mscsoftware.com/page/actran-student-edition.