4.

2 Zone Construction of Sound Fields 61

4.2 Zone Construction of a Sound Field according to Fresnel

In the foregoing chapter we have again made use of the principle of Huygens to ex-
plain the sound field and we will now use it to construct an arbitrary sound field
graphically without mathematics. The method based on Huygens' principle and de-
veloped by Fresnel is called zone construction.
Differences of the sound pressure at different points of the sound field result
from the fact that Huygens' elementary waves have not travelled along the same
paths from all points of the radiating surface. In addition their sound pressure de-
creases inversely with the distance. The individual sound pressure values of the ele-
mentary waves cannot therefore simply be added but their path differences must be
taken into account too. Two equally strong waves with a path difference of exactly
one half wavelength cancel each other completely and path differences between
zero and 112 wave length thus result in acoustic pressures between double the value
and zero. This can be presented very conveniently by vector addition as shown fOl a
few cases in Fig. 4.6. This no longer determines the path difference of two elemen-
tary waves by a linear measurement but by an angular measurement in which one
full wavelenth corresponds to an angle qJ of 360 or 2n. Generally, the path differ-
0

ence 1 corresponds to the phase angle

(4.3)

In Fig. 4.6 the sinusoidal patterns of the sound pressures of two elementary waves
superimposed at a point, are added for given instants and for different path differ"
ences (phase angles). In each case the corresponding vectors are added at the right
hand side, the result being identical but much simpler and clearer. At arbitrary
sound pressures and phase angles therefore the correlated vectors form a parallelo-
gram, the diagonal indicating the sound pressure of the resultant wave in both mag-
nitude and phase.
In the Fresnel method of presentation, all elementary waves radiated from a
given surface and producing at a given point of the sound field a resultant sound
pressure by adding their individual vectors, are first sorted into groups. Such a

)!Je/Z

Ll
a Je/2 x 3JC/Z 2x a X/2 Je 3Jr/2 2JC o Jt/2 Jt 3Jt/2 2Jt
a tp-oo b tp=JC/2-90° c rp-J!- 180° d

Fig. 4.6. Vector addition. a, band c with identical amplitude and different phase, d with dif-
ferent amplitudes. a qJ = 0; b qJ = nl2 = 90°; C qJ = 1t = 180°; d intermediate value