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
9. SPEED

8. WAVELENGTH
10. VELOCITY

11. PARTICLE VELOCITY

13. INTENSITY

12. POWER

14. DECIBEL SCALE

15. LOUDNESS & LOUDNESS LEVEL16. 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.
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- The wave forms ofACOUSTICS-4
musical tones are somewhat

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 WAVELENGTH :
- 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.
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= 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/)
Ps atmospheric pressure
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
atmospheric conditions.

constant

under

given

-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
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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
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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 4d2 of
the sound wave at the distance of interest.
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I=

W
4d2

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 c
P effective pressure in dynes/cm2
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= I14d12; and at position 2,
W=I24d22.
Since the energies are the same (because the
source is
the same), I14d12 =I24d22.
Therefore, I1/I2=d22/d12
square law of sound.
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which is the inverse

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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 W 1
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and W differ by 10log (W /W )

 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
(20Pa) the scale used to measure barometric
pressure.
A pressure change of 20Pa 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.
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The decibel scale was
devised to make calculations

 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

pressure levels between 0 to 150 dB.

sound

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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-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 answer60.6 dBAis 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
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
Sound Waves

of

A
vibrating
surface,
such as the one shown
here will emit sound
waves not only in front
and behind the surface
but also in all directions.
Near to the surface,
which is emitting the
sound, the shape of the
sound
wave
approximates to the
shape of the surface but
as the pressure waves
expand
they
will
become
virtually
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spherical.

Sound
source

Near
Spherical
Wave front

Behind
sound
source

Sound source
facing this
direction

Sound Waves from a

Source

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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,
the
Sound source
facing this
speaker is facing the
O dB -5 dB -10 dB -20dB
direction
-15 dB
direction of the arrow
and the difference in
intensity
level,
Sound
relative to direction, is
source
shown by the curves on
Polar curves at
the graph for the high
various sound
levels
and middle frequency
components of speech.
Polar Diagram of Sound
It will be seen that
there is a significant
reduction in sound level
output in decibels (dB)
* Please refer the last PPT (no.10) for
between the front 43
and
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