Innovative barrier caps - the sound barriers - built of lower heights.

The barrier tops

improve sound quality on the receiver side. The top edge of the acts as a virtual line
source comprised of diffracted sound waves. The mean IL for a road traffic noise
source over a range of receiver positions. The major challenge with designing
barriers is the cost-performance.
Physics behind it :
Low frequency noise attenuation is difficult because it can easily diffract as it has
large wavelength.
Sound intensity quantifies how much sound energy is transported and specific
acoustic impedance quantifies the possibility for sound energy to be transported.
Suppose that in a certain set up sound is travelling towards a full reflecting (rigid)
surface and the acoustic impedance is determined close to that surface. The
acoustic impedance will be high because close to the surface the particle velocity is
almost zero and the sound pressure is enlarged due to the reflection. The sound
energy will not be affected much by the surface because compared to a free
propagating sound wave, the sound pressure increases and the particle velocity
decreases.
Note that the impedance is not dependent of the loudness of the sound field; it is
determined by the environment. Both sound intensity and sound energy is
dependent of the loudness of the sound field.
Standard Specifications of a Reverberation chamber:
A sound field is generated with an energy density which is achieved with
loudspeakers that are placed at the corners of these chambers and a number of
diffusers to prevent standing waves in the chamber. A relatively larger sample of
the sound absorbing material is placed in the chamber and for a given frequency
band the reverberation time T60 is measured.
At least 20 modes of vibration in the chamber are required in the lowest frequency
band.
If the total energy (the pressure plus the velocity vector) is measured, the accuracy
of the measurements increases.

Energy density of sound is related to the sum of the sound pressure and particle
velocity. It is a measure of the amount of energy stored in an acoustic wave.