Teacher

prof. Carlo NONINO

Credits

6 CFU

Language

Italian

Objectives

Providing the students with the fundamentals of acoustics and its most important applications, in particular those concerning noise protection in civil and industrial environments.

Acquired skills

- Adding and subtracting levels and interpreting sound spectra.
- Computing sound pressure levels due to point sources indoors and outdoors.
- Computing sound barrier attenuation.
- Computing acoustic absorption and reverberation time.
- Applying basic techniques for acoustic room design and treatment.
- Computing sound insulation indexes

Lectures and exercises (topics and specific content)

Physical acoustics: pure and complex sounds; acoustic parameters; acoustic spectra, normalized acoustic bands; plane and spherical waves; reflections and refraction of sound waves (10 hours).
Sound levels: decibels; combination of levels (2 hours).
Human ear response to sound: pitch and loudness; Equal-Loudness Contours; masking (6 hours).
Sound sources: point sources and large sources; directivity factor and directivity index; directivity diagrams (2 hours).
Sound propagation outdoors: attenuation of sound pressure with distance (inverse square law); attenuation due to barriers; excess attenuations (8 hours).
Room acoustics: standing waves; reverberation; reverberation time; statistical acoustics; room sound pressure level calculation; criteria for acoustic room design and treatment (10 hours).
Sound absorption:  acoustic absorbers (types and characteristics) (4 hours).
Sound insulation: insulation from air-borne sound; transmission loss of partitions; the mass law; deviations from the mass law; double walls; composite walls. Insulation from structure-borne sound; floating floors; sound and impact transmission classes (8 hours).
Sound measurements: sound pressure level meters; other instrumentation; acoustic measurements; special chambers; fundamentals of legislation on environmental and industrial noise (8 hours).
Exercises (4 hours).
Labs (2 hours).

References

- Teacher's lecture notes

Type of exam

Oral