An integral equation method for calculating sound field diffracted by a rigid barrier on an impedance ground

Calculation of the Insertion Loss of Barriers on Rigid Ground in the Time Domain

This paper presents a method for calculating the insertion loss of barriers on the ground. The method combines the classic imaging method for an analysis of sound propagation with the secondary source model for diffraction by barriers in the time domain, which is different from other frequency-domain methods. The validity of the proposed method is verified by comparing the theoretical results with those derived from the MacDonald method, and a valid approximation for the infinite barrier is discussed.

Effects of the Top Edge Impedance on Sound Barrier Diffraction

Sound barriers can be configured with different top edge impedance to improve their noise control performance. In this paper, the integral equation method was used to calculate the sound field of a barrier with various top edge impedance, and the effects of the barrier top edge impedance on sound barrier diffraction were investigated. The simulation results showed that the noise reduction performance of a sound barrier with a soft boundary on its top edge was larger than that with a hard boundary, but there were some impedance values which, if assigned to the top edge boundary, would give the sound barrier even better noise reduction performance. It was found that the sound barrier with a good top edge impedance formed a dipole-like radiation pattern above the barrier to expand the effective range of the shadow zone. The research discoveries reported in this paper point out the potentials of using acoustics metamaterials or active control methods to implement the desired good impedance on the top edge of a sound barrier for better noise reduction.

Increasing the performance of active noise control systems on ground with two vertical reflecting surfaces with an included angle

This paper investigates the feasibility of increasing the noise reduction performance of active noise control (ANC) systems on ground by introducing two vertical reflecting surfaces with an included angle. By using the image source method, the theory of sound wave propagation in a wedge-shaped reflector and the integral equation method, the noise reduction of the ANC systems with two infinitely large or finite size reflecting surfaces with different included angles are studied. It is demonstrated that the noise reduction of the system can be increased significantly with two reflecting surfaces after optimizing their included angle and size. The simple empirical formulas for the optimal included angle of the surfaces and the noise reduction are presented. It is found that the noise reduction at 500 Hz increases by 13.6 dB when two vertical reflecting surfaces are arranged with an optimal angle of 125° and the source distance is 0.1 m. By optimizing the size of the reflecting surfaces to about 0.35 of the wavelength, the noise reduction can be further increased by approximately 2.8 dB. The mechanisms for the performance improvement are disclosed, and the experiments are conducted to validate the results.