PROPERTIES OF SOUND

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 1. FREQUENCY 2. PITCH

3. PURE TONE & COMPLEX SOUND 4. PERIOD

5. PRESSURE 6. DISPLACEMENT AMPLITUDE

7. WAVE FORM 8. WAVELENGTH

9. SPEED 10. VELOCITY

11. PARTICLE VELOCITY 12. POWER

13. INTENSITY 14. DECIBEL SCALE

15. LOUDNESS & LOUDNESS LEVEL 16. FLETCHER-MUNSON CONTOUR

17. DIRECTIONALITY OF SOUND SOURCE

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• FREQUENCY f:
- Frequency is the rate of repetition of a periodic event.

- Frequency of a sound wave is determined by the number

of times per second a given molecule of air vibrates about
its neutral position.

- The number of displacements or oscillations that a particle

undergoes in 1 sec. is frequency. Each complete
displacement is called a cycle.

- Its unit is hertz. Hz.

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• PITCH :
- It is the subjective response of human hearing to
frequency. Low frequencies generally are considered
‘boomy’ and high frequencies ‘screechy’.

• PURE TONE :
- A pure tone is vibration produced at a single frequency.

• COMPLEX SOUND :
- Most sound in everyday world are complex, consisting of
variety of pressures which vary with time.

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• PERIOD TP

- It is the time for one oscillation.

- It is inverse of frequency.

• PRESSURE P

-Pressure is a force per unit area.

- Sound energy progresses rapidly, producing extremely small

changes in atmospheric pressure, and can travel great
distances.

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 • DISPLACEMENT AMPLITUDE

- The average maximum distance the individual particles are

moved from their equilibrium positions is called the
displacement amplitude.

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• WAVE FORM :

- The wave form of a sound wave describes, by means of a

graphical representation, the precise nature of a complete to and
fro oscillation of the vibrating particles in a sound field.

- The earlier graph of simple harmonic wave form is that of

sound generated by a gently struck tuning fork.

- Although the displacements are represented as

transverse to the time axis, the actual displacements of the
particles in the sound field are parallel to the direction of
propagation of the sound wave; that is the wave motion is
longitudinal.

- The wave forms of musical tones are somewhat more

complicated.
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 • WAVELENGTH λ:

- It is a distance a sound wave travels during one cycle of

vibration.

- It is the distance between adjacent regions where

identical conditions of particle displacement occur.

- It is the distance travelled by sound radiation from an

object during one period of oscillation of the object or
the crest to crest distance.

- The distance travelled equals the product of rate and

time. The rate is the velocity of sound.

λ ƒ = c (velocity)
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• SPEED :
- If sound travelled with the speed of light, about 186,000
miles per second many of our acoustical problems in
auditoriums wont occur.

- Sound travels much slower, only about 1130 feet per

second in air at room temperature.

- Speed of sound is independent of frequency,

intensity and independent on changes in atmospheric
pressure.

- Temperature does have a significant effect: 1.1 ft/sec per

degree fahranheit rise in temperature.

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 *The dependence of speed of sound on temperature is one of
the prime causes of the bending of sound waves in the
atmosphere. This bending of sound waves (refraction)
sometimes effects the distribution of sound reaching an
audience especially in open air theatres.

Speed of sound in air = √(1.40Ps/ρ)

Ps –atmospheric pressure
ρ – density of air

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 *Speed of sound in air will be assumed to be 1130 feet per second
at a temperature of 720F.

*The speed changes only slightly with variations in relative

humidity.

*Sound travels much faster in liquids and solids than it does in air.

*Speed of sound in water is about 5000 feet per second.

*That in hard wood is about 13,000 feet per second along the
fibers and only 4000 ft/sec across them.

*In stone it is about 12,000 ft/sec.

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• VELOCITY c :

- Velocity of sound is speed in a specified direction

- Velocity is a vector quantity.

- Velocity should never be used interchangeably with speed

of sound or particle velocity.

-Velocity of sound is constant under given atmospheric

conditions.

-Velocity of sound depends on the elasticity and density of

the medium.

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 *Particle velocity is proportional to the product of the
frequency and displacement amplitude of the sound waves.

*Particle velocity depends on the distance of the waves from

the sound source.

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• POWER

- It is the basic quantity of energy flow.

- The average acoustical power by all sound sources is

surprisingly small. For instance 10 watts of electrical energy
at an incandescent lamp produces a very dim light, whereas
10 watts of acoustical power can produce an extremely loud
sound.

- Peak power for musical instruments can range from 0.05

watts for a clarinet to 25 watts for a bass drum.

- The simultaneous loud speech of 4 million people would

produce the power necessary to burn a single 40W bulb.

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 - A singing voice or a musical
instrument radiates several
hundred or even thousands
of microwatts of acoustical
power. This explains the
ease with which a singer or
musician can fill the volume
of an auditorium that is too
large for unamplified speech.

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• SOUND INTENSITY I:

- The sound intensity in a specified direction at a point in a

sound field is defined as the rate of flow of sound energy
through a unit area at that point, the unit area being
perpendicular to the specified direction.

- Sound intensity is usually expressed in watts per square

centimeter (W/cm2)

- The intensity from a point source outdoors at a distance

‘d’ away is the sound power of the source divided by the
total spherical area 4ᴨd2 of the sound wave at the
distance of interest.

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 I= W
4ᴨd2

W – Sound power in Watts

d – distance from sound source

- There is a simple relation between intensity I and sound

pressure P in plane or spherical free waves I = P2 watts/cm2
107 ρ c

P – effective pressure in dynes/cm2

ρ – density of air in gm/cm3
c – velocity of sound in cm/sec

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 • VARIATION OF PRESSURE AND INTENSITY WITH DISTANCE :

- If a sound wave originates to a point in a homogeneous

and undisturbed medium, away from all reflecting and
diffracting surfaces, the sound is propagated radially in all
directions and the wave front is spherical.

- Intensity of such waves falls off inversely as the square

of the distance from the source, and hence sound
pressure falls off inversely as the distance.

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 -* It is assumed that sound is not lost due to absorption
in air.

- *If sound is propagated over an absorptive surface, the

intensity may fall off even more rapidly, inversely as the
fourth power of the distance. ie. The pressure varies
inversely as the square of the distance.

-* In special cases, sound waves having a cylindrical wave

front can be obtained by reflection from a very large,
hard, cylindrical surface. The intensity of such outgoing
waves varies inversely with the distance from the
effective source and the pressure varies inversely as the
square root of the distance.

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 • INVERSE SQUARE LAW OF SOUND :

Consider a wave front at positions 1 and 2 as shown on

the above illustration.

At position 1, W= I14ᴨd12; and at position 2, W=I24ᴨd22.

Since the energies are the same (because the source is

the same), I14ᴨd12 =I24ᴨd22.

Therefore, I1/I2=d22/d12 which is the inverse square law

of sound.

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• DECIBEL SCALE :

- It is often convenient to describe and measure these

quantities on a logarithmic scale called the ‘decibel scale’.

- The decibel (dB) is a unit which denotes the ratio

between two amounts of power, intensity or sound
pressure.

- It is customary to compare the pressure of all sounds

with 0.0002 Dynes/cm2. This is an arbitrary choice but it
approximates rather closely the minimum sound pressure
that is audible to the normal human ear.

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 - The ‘sound pressure level’ (sound level) of a sound wave
having a sound pressure P Dynes/cm2 is 20log10 P . dB
0.0002

- If I1 and I2 are intensities of two sounds, I1 being greater

than I2, then 10log10(I1/I2) gives the number of decibels
by which I1 exceeds I2. The intensity level of any sound
having an intensity I W/cm2 is 10log10(I/I0) dB.

-For most room temperatures an intensity of 10-16

watts/cm2 corresponds closely to a sound pressure of
0.0002 Dynes/cm2.

- Likewise two sound sources having powers of W1 and W2

differ by 10log10(W1/W2)

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• LOUDNESS AND LOUDNESS LEVEL

- The loudness of a sound (that is, the magnitude of

sensation) depends not only on the pressure of the sound
but also on its frequency spectrum.

- The loudness can be described quantitatively in terms of

another subjective characteristic of sound, the so called
loudness level which itself is defined in terms of the
sound pressure and frequency of a pure tone. These curves
are the well-known Fletcher-Munson Contours of equal
loudness.

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 - They were obtained by employing a pure 1000-cycle
tone as a reference tone and adjusting the sound pressure
level of tones of other frequencies until they were judged to
be of the same loudness as that of certain arbitrarily chosen
pressure levels of the reference tone.

- Thus by definition, the loudness level, in phons, of a

sound is numerically equal to the sound pressure level in
decibels, of the 1000 cycle reference tone which is judged by
listeners to be equal in loudness.

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The graph shows that a 500 cycle tone having a sound level of only 20 dB
sounds equally as loud as a 60 cycle tone having a sound level of 50 dB. Both
have a loudness level of 20 phons.

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 Fletcher-Munson contour demonstrate
some interesting phenomena

• Sensitivity drops off sharply at low

frequencies.

• Maximum sensitivity occurs between 3

&4 kHz –precisely the frequencies that
contain most information in human
speech.

• In the normal hearing range of 45-85

dB, and most used frequency range of
150-2 kHz, the contour is substantially
flat

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 *The loudness of a sound is related to the total nerve energy
produced by the sound in the ear, when it is sent to the brain. It
is measured in sones, millisones or loudness units.

*1 sone= 1000 millisones= 1000 loudness units

*A loudness of 1 millisone corresponds to the threshold of

hearing; a loudness of 10 sones is twice as loud as a loudness of
5 sones and 10 times as loud as 1 sone.

* A change in loudness level of 30 phons corresponds to a

tenfold change in loudness and a change in loudness level of 9
phons corresponds to a two fold change in loudness.

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DECIBEL (dB) AND A-WEIGHTED DECIBEL (dBA) SCALE
• The size or amplitude of pressure changes is measured in
decibels or dB.

• The weakest sound the human ear can hear has an amplitude of
around 20 millionths of a Pascal (20μPa) – the scale used to
measure barometric pressure.

• A pressure change of 20μPa is equivalent to 5 billion times less

than normal atmospheric pressure.

• Because the range of sound pressures in a typical room is so

huge, using the Pascal scale to measure noise would be close to
impossible.
• The decibel scale was devised to make calculations of noise
levels manageable.

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 • The decibel (dB) is a unit of logarithmic measure, which uses
2 x 10 –5 Pa as the starting point of zero (0) dB.

• Zero dB or 2 x 10 –5 Pa is the lowest pressure a young adult

can detect of a pure tone at 1000 Hz.

• Most continuous noise sources emit sound pressure levels

between 0 to 150 dB.

• A level of 150 dB is equivalent to a jet aircraft at take off.

• Noise levels over 150 dB can also occur.

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A-WEIGHTED DECIBEL (dBA) SCALE:
• It is necessary to convert from the dB to dBA scale and vice
versa.

• For example, a manufacturer might provide the noise level of

a machine in dB, whereas the community noise requirement
is stated for dBA.

• In this case, initial calculations of the noise level might be

made in dB, then converted to dBA.

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 Example:
• A 100 dB sound in the 31.5 Hz band has a correction factor of
–39.4.
• Subtract 39.4 from 100 dB (i.e., 100 dB – 39.4 = 60.6 dBA).
• The answer—60.6 dBA—is how “loud” the 100 dB sound is
perceived by the human ear in the 31.5 Hz band.

• By contrast, the same 100 dB sound is perceived by the

human ear exactly as 100 dBA when frequencies are in the
1000 Hz band (i.e., 100 dB – 0 = 100 dBA).

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OTHER WEIGHTINGS (B, C & D)

• There exist three additional weighting networks — B, C, and

D — which are used in special circumstances.

• When low frequency noise is of concern, C weightings are

used.

• D weightings are used when very high frequencies, like those

emitted from jet engines, need to be attenuated.

• The B weightings, emphasizing middle frequencies, are no

longer in use.

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• DIRECTIONALITY OF SOUND SOURCES :

*When the wavelength of the emitted sound is very large

in relation to the dimensions of the source, energy is
radiated uniformly in all the directions.

* On the other hand if the wavelength is small in relation to

the dimensions of the source, most of the radiated sound
is confined to a relatively narrow beam : the higher the
frequency, the sharper the beam.

: as a result all the listeners in an auditorium may

receive almost the same amount of power for the low
frequencies emitted by the loud speakers of the sound
amplification system.

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General Form of Sound
Waves

A vibrating surface, such as

the one shown here will emit Sound
Near
sound waves not only in front source
Spherical
Wave front
and behind the surface but
also in all directions. Behind
sound Sound source facing
source this direction
Near to the surface, which is
emitting the sound, the shape
of the sound wave
approximates to the shape of
Sound Waves from a Source
the surface but as the
pressure waves expand they
will become virtually
spherical.

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 - Most of the individual sources of sound emit sound in all
directions but may emit sound with greater intensity in one
direction

- examples being the human voice and wind

instruments.

This means that the expanding sound waves, though

spherical, may vary in intensity in different parts of their
frontal area.

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 The directionality of sound
sources is normally
illustrated by 'polar
diagrams'.
An example is given in this
diagram for the human voice,
Sound source facing the speaker is facing the
O dB -5 dB -10 dB -20dB
this direction direction of the arrow and
-15 dB the difference in intensity
level, relative to direction, is
shown by the curves on the
Sound graph for the high and middle
source
frequency components of
Polar curves at
various sound speech.
levels
It will be seen that there is a
Polar Diagram of Sound
significant reduction in sound
level output in decibels (dB)
between the front and back
of a speaker.
* Please refer the last PPT (no.10) for references.
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