Acoustics: The process of generation, reception and propagation of sound is called acoustics.

Important fields of acoustics are-

✓ Design of acoustical instruments

✓ Electro-acoustics

✓ Architectural acoustics

✓ Musical acoustics

Architectural acoustics: Architectural acoustics deals with the design and construction of
buildings, operas, music halls, recording room in radio and television broadcasting stations etc.

i.e., it deals with the behavior of sound in a closed spaced.

Acoustics of buildings: The term ‘Acoustics of building’ describes the production, transmission
and reception of sound inside the building.

Reverberation: When a sound pulse is produced in a room or an auditorium, a listener receives

The quality of the note received by the listener will be the combined effect of these two sets of
waves. There is always a time gap between the direct wave received by the listener and the
waves received by successive reflection. Due to this, the audible sound persists for sometime
even after the source has ceased to operate. This persistence of sound is termed as
reverberation.

Reverberation is one of the important factor that affects the acoustics of a room or a hall.

Reverberation time: The time taken for the energy density to fall to the minimum audible
value from an initial value 106 times as great.

The reverberation time must be correct for a building to be acoustically correct. It should be
neither too long nor too short.

Prerequisite for a good auditorium: In a good auditorium, it is necessary to keep the

➢ The walls and ceiling of the room should be covered with materials of high absorption
coefficient, i.e., with perforated cardboards, asbestos, fiber glass etc.
 ➢ The walls should be engraved and made rough with decorative material to increase
absorption.

➢ Heavy curtains should be hanged.

➢ The room must have few windows.

➢ In case of an auditorium, there should be a good number of audience. Each person is

➢ While planning a concert hall or theatre, upholstered seats should be provided so that
the absorption is approximately the same with or without the audience.

➢ The curved walls and corners bounded by two walls should be avoided. This is done
to avoid (a) concentration of sound, and (b) dead spaces.

Sabine’s Reverberation Formula

❑ Sabine’s reverberation formula (Growth and decay of sound intensity inside a room)

The theoretical study of reverberation commenced with Sabine. In order to derive an analytical
expression for the growth and decay of sound intensity inside a room, the following assumptions
are made:

(i) The distribution of sound energy within the room is uniform in all parts and is equally
transmitted in all directions.

(ii) The rate at which energy is emitted by the source is constant and is independent of the
energy level in the enclosure.

(iii) The dissipation of energy in the air of the enclosure is negligible. Energy dissipation is
confined to the boundary surfaces of the enclosure.

(iv) The absorption coefficient of the surfaces is independent of intensity.

(v) Superposition effect may be neglected.

Let 𝐸 be the rate of energy supply of the source and 𝑉 be the volume of the room.
𝐸
The energy density= 𝑉

Let 𝐼 be the minimum intensity, 𝑛 be the number of reflections per second, 𝑎 be the mean
absorption coefficient.

The rate of decrease of energy density due to absorption= 𝐼𝑎𝑛

𝑑𝐼 𝐸
= − 𝐼𝑎𝑛, … … … (1)
𝑑𝑡 𝑉
𝑐𝑠
Jager proved by a statistical method that, 𝑛 = 4𝑉 , … … … (2)

Substituting the value of 𝑛 from (2) to (1),

𝑑𝐼 𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼
= − , … … … (3)
𝑑𝑡 𝑉 4𝑉
(i) Growth of intensity: To solve the equation (3),

𝑑𝐼
= 𝑑𝑡, … … … (4)
𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼
−
𝑉 4𝑉
By integrating,

4𝑉 𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼
− 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 ( − ) = 𝑡 + 𝑘, … … … (5)
𝑐𝑎𝑠 𝑉 4𝑉

Where 𝑘 is an integration constant.

At 𝑡 = 0, 𝐼 = 0,

4𝑉 𝐸
∴𝑘=− 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒
𝑐𝑎𝑠 𝑉

Substituting the value of 𝑘 in equation (5),

4𝑉 𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼 4𝑉 𝐸
− 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 ( − )=𝑡− 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒
𝑐𝑎𝑠 𝑉 4𝑉 𝑐𝑎𝑠 𝑉
4𝑉 𝐸 𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼
𝑜𝑟, [𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 − 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 ( − )] = 𝑡
𝑐𝑎𝑠 𝑉 𝑉 4𝑉
𝐸 ⁄𝑉 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 =
𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼 4𝑉
𝑉 − 4𝑉
4𝐸 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 ( )=
4𝐸 − 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼 4𝑉
4𝐸 − 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, = 𝑒 − 4𝑉
4𝐸
 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 1 − = 𝑒 − 4𝑉
4𝐸
𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, = 1 − 𝑒 − 4𝑉
4𝐸
4𝐸 −
𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝐼 = (1 − 𝑒 4𝑉 ) , … … … (6)
𝑐𝑎𝑠
4𝐸
Here, 𝐼 attains maximum value, 𝐼0 = 𝑐𝑎𝑠, when 𝑡 is infinity.

𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
∴ 𝐼 = 𝐼0 (1 − 𝑒 − 4𝑉 ) , … … … (7)

Hence, the growth is exponential.

(ii) Decay of Intensity: Now, source is cut off.

∴𝐸 =0

Hence equation (3) becomes,

𝑑𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝐼
=−
𝑑𝑡 4𝑉
𝑑𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠
𝑜𝑟, =− 𝑑𝑡
𝐼 4𝑉
 𝑑𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠
𝑜𝑟, ∫ =− ∫ 𝑑𝑡
𝐼 4𝑉
𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 𝐼 = − + 𝑘, … … … (8)
4𝑉
At, 𝑡 = 0, 𝐼 = 𝐼0 ∴ 𝑘 = 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 𝐼0
𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 𝐼 = − + 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 𝐼0
4𝑉
𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 =−
𝐼0 4𝑉

𝐼 −
𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, = 𝑒 4𝑉
𝐼0
𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡
𝑜𝑟, 𝐼 = 𝐼0 𝑒 − 4𝑣 , … … … (9)

𝐼
If 𝑇 be the time of reverberation, becomes 10 −6 in time T.
𝐼0

𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑇
10−6 = 𝑒 − 4𝑉

𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑇
𝑜𝑟, 𝑒 4𝑉 = 106

𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑇
𝑜𝑟, = 6𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 10
4𝑉
 24𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 10. 𝑉
𝑜𝑟, 𝑇 =
𝑐𝑎𝑠
24 × 2.3026 × 𝑉
𝑜𝑟, 𝑇 =
340 × 𝐴
Here, 𝐴 = ∑ 𝑎𝑠 is the total absorption of all the surfaces.

0.16 𝑉
𝑇=
𝐴
The time of reverberation is defined as the time taken for the energy density to fall to the
minimum audible value from an initial value 106 times as great. i.e., a range of 60 decibels.

Sabine used an organ pipe of frequency 512 vibrations per second as the standard source in his
experiment. It gave an initial energy level in the room 𝟏𝟎𝟔 times the minimum audible
sound.