Theoretical and Numerical Determination of Low-Frequency Reverberant Characteristics of Coupled Rooms

Abstract

The main aim of room acoustics is to predict reverberant properties of enclosures from measured or numerically simulated room responses. In this paper, this issue was examined in low-frequency range where acoustic characteristics of rooms are strongly frequency dependent due to differences in a modal damping. A theoretical description of a decaying sound field was based on a modal expansion of the sound pressure, and a reverberant response of the room was initiated by emission of Dirac delta time impulse or by switching off a time-harmonic source. Theoretical findings were employed to determine reverberant characteristics of a coupled-room system containing two connected rectangular subrooms. Simulation results have shown that a sound decay after steady-state harmonic excitation is strongly influenced by the sound frequency and due to large fluctuations in a decaying pressure; numerical techniques for smoothing decay curves are needed. Calculations also revealed that in some one-third octave bands, the decay function found via backward integration of squared room impulse response (RIR) changes very irregularly impeding a proper qualifying of nature of sound decay.