Buildings & Infrastructure
Sound is an essential part of well being. Managing noise level and intelligibility in large spaces requires attention to acoustics. A design which evading strong or focused reflections, allowing sufficient absorption of sounds, and isolation from very loud areas, etc. Qsources provides the most accurate sound sources for room acoustics analysis, impulse response measurements and reverberation.
Controlling sound transmission between different rooms or sections of a building is another key element to creating environments where people live and interact well. Isolation or insertion loss testing, especially between large halls and at luxury apartments requires high power sound sources. And on-site isolation measurements are expensive. Can one person do the job? How long does it take to bring the equipment on-site and make the set-up? Will the level be sufficient in all third octave bands? The Qsources dodecahedron sound sources have been developed to make on-site testing much more efficient. Qsources provides the lightest, smallest high output, full frequency range sound sources in the market.
Industrial installations, chemical process installations, bridges, pumping stations, etc. tend to be more critical w.r.t. to vibration. Either because of the resulting noise emission or because vibrations affect reliability and even functionality. Remember the Millennium Bridge across the Thames (UK) where low damped modes made pedestrian crossing an adventure, and had to be closed. To support on-site determination of modes and sensitivity we propose the Qsources self-supporting shakers
Some applications
Reverberation and impulse response measurement.
Sports facilities, railway stations, schools, apartments, doctors office, etc. are among the numerous sites where reverberation needs to be controlled. Performance sites, churches, theaters, lecture rooms, opera houses, community hall, etc. have even higher requirements to analyze sound reflections individually to control speech and music quality. These sites require measurements, optimizations and verification testing. Sound sources specifically for these applications:
Sound Insulation
Sleeping in quietness. Sleeping rooms in apartment buildings present a challenge; elevators, adjacent apartments, and in most cases the vicinity of heavy traffic, railway, nearby airports. The Qsources dodecahedron sound sources are made to provide uniform radiation in all directions, well beyond the requirements in ISO standards. And uniform radiation allows accurate measurements with less positions or less uncertainty in the isolation results. The sound sources for airborne isolation:
Very relevant and practical for the most common structure borne noise in buildings; people walking, stepping. ISO conform measurements of vibration and broadband noise responses of floors and other horizontal surfaces:
Vibration, modes and input impedance
Large built structures potentially support large machinery, vehicles and other installations. And these can cause serious vibration or low frequency noise issues. Understanding of the eigen modes, or the accelarance in multiple directions at support locations help improve their isolation for vibration and low frequency noise, and sometimes even for stability. The Qsources self-supporting shakers enable accurate measurements on-site in an efficient a non-intrusive way. Even for very large exciataion forces, there are glue-on solutions for on-site measurements. The most relevant shakers:
And for ISO conform measurements of vibration responses of floors and other horizontal surfaces:
Research in built structures
There are constant new challenges like for example; large heavy elevators in high flexible buildings, new shapes, new materials. And there are also much smaller objects in built structures that pose challenges, like how to integrate air-conditioning compressors in a wooden structure. Or what are the properties of bamboo, and how to model interfaces in wooden structures. Some shakers from high force to lower force and higher frequencies to support vibration and vibro-acoustic research:
Or to study the vibro-acoustic sensitivity of consoles, wall attachments, roof structure in a non-intrusive way using reciprocity. Some volume sound sources for such applications:
All described measurements also require microphones and data processing for the pure building acoustics techniques. Our partners in different markets can assist you to create a full chain solution including the Qsources excitation sources and shakers. For the structure analysis and building research you can also address Siemens, Head acoustics, Polytec.
