Sound Power Measurement

A sound source will radiate dierent sound powers in dierent environments,

especially at low frequencies when the wavelength is comparable to the size of the
room
1
. Fortunately this dierence is not very large for most sound sources, in
particular mechanical sources, and we can always use the sound power radiated
in the free eld as an approximation.
1 Principle
The sound power is dened as
W =
_
S
I dS =
_
S
I
n
dS, (1)
where I = pu is the sound intensity vector and I
n
is the sound intensity normal
to the surface S. The surface should completely enclose the sound source. Sound
power level is then
L
w
= 10 log
W
W
0
=

L
I
+ 10 log
_
S
S
0
_
, (2)
where

L
I
is the averaged normal sound intensity level and S is the area of surface
enclosing the source. S
0
= 1 m
2
is the reference surface, and the reference sound
power W
0
is dened through the reference intensity I
0
as W
0
= I
0
S
0
.
2 Sound pressure method
In practical situations, the relation between sound pressure level and sound
power level or normal sound intensity level is very complicated, and one cannot
get accurate estimation of sound power level by using sound pressure measure-
ments. However, in two ideal cases free eld and a diuse eld sound
power is explicitly related to the sound pressure. Free eld and reverberation
room methods have been developed which can be used to estimate sound power
level rather accurately. Engineering and survey methods with lower accuracy
have also been developed for other environments and for in situ measurements.
1
More accurately, the mean free path; the average distance a sound ray will travel between
successive reections.
1
Free eld
In a free eld there is only direct sound and no reection exists. For a progressive
wave, there is a unique relation between the mean-squared sound pressure and
the intensity in the direction of the wave propagation,
I =
p
2
c
. (3)
Hence the normal sound intensity level over the surface can be expressed as
L
I
= 10 log
I
I
0
= 10 log
p
2
cI
0
= L
p
10 log(C) (4)
where C = I
0
c
_
p
2
0
= c/400. In room temperature (20

C) with an ambient
pressure of 1 atm (1.013 10
5
N/m
2
), 10 log(C) = 0.146 dB and L
I
= L
p

0.146 dB.
Splitting the surface S into N dierent pieces S
n
, the discrete form of equa-
tion (1) becomes
W =
N

n=1
I
n
S
n
free eld

n=1
p
2
n
S
n
c
. (5)
Sound power level is then estimated as
L
w
= 10 log
W
W
0
= 10 log
N

n=1
p
2
n
S
n
cW
0
dB. (6)
This can be expressed as by using averaged sound pressure level
L
w
=

L
p
+ 10 log(
S
S
0
) + 10 log(
p
2
0
S
0
cW
0
) dB, (7)
where S is the total surface in m
2
and

L
p
= 10 log
_
_
_
_
1
s
N

n=1
p
2
n
S
n
p
2
0
_
_
_
_
dB (8)
is the averaged sound pressure level. If the reference values of sound pressure
and sound power are put into equation (7) the last term vanishes when c = 400.
Equation (7) is the basic equation for sound pressure method in a free eld.
Diuse eld
In a diuse eld the sound pressure level is essentially independent of the dis-
tance to the sound source. Based on the concept of mean free path, the re-
lation between sound energy density E(t) and the sound power W radiated by
the source can be obtained as
E(t) =
4W
c S
_
1 exp
_

c S
4V
t
__
, (9)
2
where V and S are the volume and wall surface of the room respectively, and
is the mean absorption coecient. The steady-state sound energy density can
be obtained by letting t as
E
0
=
4W
c S
. (10)
The steady-state sound energy density in above equation can also be expressed
by the sound pressure as
E
0
=
p
2
c
2
. (11)
Combining above two equations and rearranging them we can obtain the relation
between sound power and sound pressure in a reverberation eld
W =
p
2
c

S
4
=
p
2
c

A
4
(12)
where A = S is the equivalent absorption. The formula may also be expressed
by using the reverberation time to replace the equivalent absorption as
W =
p
2
c

13.8V
cT
, (13)
since
A =
55.26V
cT
. (14)
Based on above formula one can calculate sound power levels from measured
sound pressure levels if the parameters of the reverberation room are known.
The sound power level of a sound source will then have the form
L
w
= 20 log
_
W
W
0
_
=

L
p
+ 10 log
_
A
A
0
_
6 +C. (15)
The rst three terms are obtained from (12), A
0
is a reference absorption of 1 m,
and C is a term related to small correction factors for other inuences such as air
absorption, ambient pressure, temperature, and interface patterns formed near
the room surfaces. ISO has suggested a few formulas for the correction term
in ISO 3740 series of standards depending on the accuracy of the measurement
methods. The details can be found in the corresponding standards.
Field (in situ)
In this case both direct and reverberation elds exist and the mean-squared
sound pressure can be written as
p
2
= Wc
_
Q

4r
2
+
4
R
_
, (16)
where W is the sound power, R = S /(1 ) is the room constant and Q

is
the directivity of the sound source. In this situation it is dicult to measure
sound power accurately by measuring sound pressure level. It is quite common
to use comparison methods with reference sound sources or to introduce an
environment correction K
2
to get more reliable measurement results.
3
3 Direct method vs. comparison method
Before intensity methods became widely used, it was common to nd the sound
power of a sound source using sound pressure measurements. Even nowadays,
when sound intensity probes are commonly found and corresponding standards
are published, sound pressure methods are still popular in practice.
There are two main types of sound pressure methods used to evaluate sound
power: Direct methods and comparison methods.
Direct method
In the direct methods, the sound power is calculated using the measured aver-
aged sound pressure level with equation (7) for a free eld and equation (15)
for a diuse eld. When the diuse eld is a concern, the equivalent sound
absorption should also be measured with the sound source in question through
reverberation time measurements.
For other non-ideal situations, the relation between sound power and sound
pressure is more complicated as indicated by (16). ISO suggests two parameters
to describe environment corrections: K
1
for background noise correction and K
2
for environment correction. Those corrections should be included when evalu-
ating the sound power level to take into account the eect of the environment
and of background noise. It is the environment that determines which type of
measurements should be performed and which accuracy level the measurement
can reach.
Comparison method
As stated above, in order to calculate sound power from sound pressure level
measured in a diuse eld, one needs to measure reverberation time when the
sound source under test is mounted in the room. This may take longer time than
the measurement of the sound pressure level radiated by the sound source under
test. Furthermore, when measuring sound power level in situ, the environmental
conditions may be so severe that the environment correction K
2
exceeds 7 dB.
In that case, no direct method with sound pressure level may be performed.
In these situations, comparison methods can be an alternative. In compari-
son methods, the radiated sound pressure level of the sound source in question
is compared with that radiated by a standard sound source. The sound power
radiated from this reference sound source is precisely calibrated at the exactly
the same environmental conditions. The sound power dierence between the
reference source and the source in question should then be the same as the
dierence between the measured sound pressure levels.
The basic assumption of this method is that the environment inuence (ab-
sorption, reection, etc.) on the sound source under test should be the same as
the reference sound source. This is usually a mechanical sound source with a
stable output of sound power which is calibrated with high accuracy in a labo-
ratory. It is used to nd the inuence of the environment which contributes in
relating the sound power of the source to the resulting sound pressure level.
This method is obviously suitable for mechanical sound sources with high
internal impedance. Electrodynamic sound sources tend to have low internal
4
impedance and are thus more easily aected by the environment. Therefore,
this method may not very suitable for this type of sound source.
In the comparison method, one avoids measuring reverberation time, making
sound power measurements much easier. The method is also commonly used to
get the environment correction K
2
for special test environments.
Since the comparison method compares the reected or reverberant sound
elds of a reference source and the source in question, it is clearly not suitable
for a free eld measurement. The more reverberant the sound eld is, the higher
accuracy this method can reach. We can get precision accuracy (grade 1) when
this method is applied to a reverberation room and engineering accuracy (grade
2) when this method is applied to a eld with the environment correction K
2
bigger than 7 dB. For the case of K
2
smaller than 7 dB, only survey accuracy
(grade 3) can be reached.
When the dimension of the sound source under test is much larger than the
reference sound source or when the sound source has a strong directivity, the
environment inuence may not be same. Care must be taken in this situation.
One solution is to measure the sound pressure level of the reference sound source
when it is located at dierent positions and then the average is taken. The
procedure is described in detail in corresponding ISO standards.
4 Sound intensity method
This method directly measures the sound intensity instead of sound pressure
level and hence it can in principle be used in free eld measurements.
The total intensity will be
I = I
direct
+I
diuse
. (17)
In a diuse eld, waves propagate in random directions. Therefore, the intensity
vectors of dierent waves have random directions and tend to cancel each other
out, so that I
diuse
0. Thus, we are left with approximately only the intensity
vector directly from the sound source, I I
direct
. Measuring intensity will thus
give us the same intensity as if there were no reverberation.
There are generally two methods to get averaged sound intensity level:
Scanning method to get averaged sound intensity level by scanning over
a hypothetical surface which completely encloses the noise source under
test.
Measuring at discrete points to get averaged sound intensity level by
measuring at discrete points on the measurement surface which completely
encloses the noise source under test.
In principle, intensity methods can be applied to any environment but in practice
they are restricted by instruments, background noise and the situation of the
acoustic eld.
Measuring the normal intensity I
n
on each piece S
i
of the enclosing surface,
the sound power component W
i
on that piece is
W
i
= I
n
S
i
(18)
5
and the sound power level can thus be determined as
L
w
= 10 log
_
N

i=1
W
i
W
0
_
. (19)
5 Standards
The above sections describe basic principles and procedures of measurements in
dierent conditions. In practice many factors have to be taken into account in
order to reduce errors and to make results more reliable and repeatable.
The international standards for determination of sound power levels of ma-
chines and equipments are outlined in the ISO standard 3740:2000 where ISO
3741 ISO 3747 are sound pressure methods while ISO 9614-1, ISO 9614-2 and
ISO 9614-3 (not listed in ISO 3740) are sound intensity methods. They can
be divided into three groups according to the measurement accuracy: Precision
methods (grade 1), engineering methods (grade 2) and survey methods (grade
3). Consequently, they also have dierent requirements on environment and
background noise level.
In the followingm details on these standards are discussed with focus on
precision laboratory methods (ISO 3745 and ISO 3741). Other in situ methods
(ISO 3747 and 3746) will be discussed in the lab exercise.
5.1 Free eld methods (ISO 3744, 3745 and 3746)
For all three methods hypothetical surfaces over a reecting plane are used with
equation (7) to calculate the sound power. (The exception is ISO 3745, which
uses no reecting plane.) Direct measurements are always are used in these
methods. The main dierences among them are:
1. Accuracy
2. Required test environment
3. Background noise
4. Obtainable sound powers
Here only ISO 3745:2003 will be discussed in detail. For others, see the
relevant standards.
Room
The standards specify dierent kinds of requirements for the rooms to achieve
dierent grades of accuracy.
Background noise
At least 10 dB lower than the sound pressure level measured from the source
under test in each frequency band.
6
Temperature
Should be within the range 10

C to 30

C. Within this range the inuence of

humidity can be neglected.
Instrumentation
The accuracy of instruments should be consistent with the accuracy of the
method.
Installation of source
Whenever a typical condition of mounting exists for the source, it should be
used or simulated, if practicable.
Radius of measurement sphere (or hemisphere)
The radius of the test hemisphere should be equal to or larger than all of fol-
lowing:
Twice the largest source dimension or three times the distance of the
acoustic center of the source from the reecting plane, whichever is larger
(for a semi-anechoic room)
The wavelength of the lowest frequency of interest
1 m
Microphone positions
One of the following four methods is used to obtain the average value of the
mean squared pressure on the test sphere (or hemisphere). Any measurement
point should be at least 1 m away from the absorptive surfaces of the room.
Note that the averages must be performed on mean squared values instead of
on dB levels.
a. Fixed microphone positions The standard recommends an array of
microphone positions associated with equal areas on the measurement surface.
In general, the number of measurement points is sucient if the dierence in
decibels between the highest and lowest sound pressure levels measured in any
frequency band of interest is numerically less than half of the number of mea-
surement points. If this requirement is not satised using 20-point array, an
additional 20-point array must be used. If the requirement is still not satised
by the 40-point, one might need to use microphone positions associated with
unequal areas. In this case it should be taken into account when making average
of sound pressure level. See ISO 3745 for details.
b. Coaxial circular paths in parallel planes
c. Meridional arc traverses
d. Spiral path
7
Measurement time
For the frequency bands centered on or below 160 Hz, the measurement time
must be at least 30 seconds. For A-weighted sound pressure levels and for the
frequency bands centered on or above 200 Hz, the measurement time must be
at least 10 seconds.
Correction for background sound pressure levels
Background noise correction is often denoted by K
1
. If the dierence of the
sound pressure level when the source is in operation and the background noise
level is between 10 dB and 20 dB for each frequency band, the inuence of the
background noise must be corrected. For frequency band i, the background
noise correction is given by
K
1i
= 10 log(1 10
0.1L
i
) dB, (20)
where
L
i
= L

pi
L

pi
is the dierence in sound pressure level at the same measurement point and same
frequency band with and without the source in operation. When L = 10 dB,
the factor K
1i
is about 0.5 dB.
The corrected sound pressure level is then
L
pi
= L

pi
K
1i
dB. (21)
If the background noise is more than 20 dB below the sound pressure level with
the source under test, no correction is needed.
Calculation of sound power level
The sound power is calculated as
L
w
=

L
p
+ 10 log
_
S
1
S
0
_
+C
1
+C
2
dB, (22)
where
C
1
= 10 log
B
B
0
_
313.15
273.15 +
and C
2
= 15 log
B
B
0
_
296.15
273.15 +
(23)
are small correction factors involving the ambient pressure B during the mea-
surements, standard atmospheric pressure B
0
= 1.013 10
5
Pa, and tempera-
ture (in

C) during measurements. For an anechoic room, S
1
is equal to 4r
2
where r is the radius of the test sphere. For a semi-anechoic room, S
1
is equal
to 2r
2
.
5.2 Reverberation room methods (ISO 3741 and 3743)
ISO 3741 is a precision method (grade 1) while ISO 3743-1 and ISO 3743-2 are
engineering methods (grade 2).
If frequencies above 300 Hz are included in the frequency range of interest,
the volume of the test room should not exceed 300 m
3
.
8
1/3 octave band
center frequency
(Hz)
Upper value of standard deviation of
reproducibility
R
(dB)
Anechoic room Semi-anechoic room
50 80
a
2.0 2.0
100 630 1.0 1.5
800 5000 0.5 1.0
6300 10000 1.0 1.5
12500 20000
b
2.0 2.0
A-weighted 0.5 0.5
a: if the sound eld is qualied
b: if the instruments allows and if correction is made for
absorption of sound by the atmosphere
Table 1: Estimated upper values of the standard deviations of reproducibility
of sound power levels determined in accordance with ISO 3745:2003
Bandwidth Center frequency (Hz) Upper value of standard
deviation of reproducibility (dB)
1/3 octave
100 160 3
200 315 2
400 5000 1.5
6300 10000 3
octave
125 2.5
250 1.5
500 4000 1
8000 2
A-weighted 0.5
Table 2: Estimated upper values of the standard deviations of reproducibility
of sound power levels determined in accordance with ISO 3741:1999
Lowest band of interest Minimum volume of the
test room (m
3
)
125 Hz (octave) or 100 Hz (1/3 octave) 200
125 Hz (1/3 octave) 150
160 Hz (1/3 octave) 100
250 Hz (octave) or 200 Hz (1/3 octave) 70
Table 3: Minimum volume of the test rooms
9
Requirements for absorption of test room
The absorption of the room can inuence the minimum distance between the
noise source and the microphone positions. It also inuences the sound radiation
of the source and the frequency response characteristics of the test space. Due
to these reasons the absorption of the test room should be neither too large nor
extremely small, requiring that < 0.06 for the surface closest to the source,
and that T > V/S.
Location of the source
Should be placed at least 1.5 m away from any wall of the room.
Microphones
The minimum distance between source and microphone is d
min
= C
1
_
V /T,
where C
1
= 0.08, or 0.16 for a higher grade of accuracy.
If the microphone is being moved during the measurement, it must move at
constant speed over a path at least 3 in length, where is the wavelength
of the center frequency of the lowest frequency band (about 10 m if the
lowest frequency band is 100 Hz).
For an array of several microphones, the microphone positions must be
spaced at a distance of at least /2 from each other and 1 m from the
room surface.
Number of microphone positions and source locations
When xed microphone positions are used, at least six microphone positions at
dierent heights should be used. If the standard deviation for any frequency
band is larger than 1.5 dB, additional microphone positions must be used. See
ISO 3741:1999 for details.
Although a reverberation room represents a diuse eld, it is still far away
from a real diuse eld where sound pressure is the same everywhere. That is
the reason averaging over many microphone positions or over a long microphone
traverse path is required.
Radiation on discrete frequencies or narrow bands of noise
If a source radiates narrow band or discrete frequency sound, a precision deter-
mination of sound power requires greater eort than that of a broadband sound
source. The standard gives additional precautions which have to be observed
for this type of sound source. The methods are often complex and time con-
suming for sources that mainly emit on discrete frequencies below 200 Hz. For
such sources measurement in a free eld described in ISO 3745 are likely to be
more appropriate.
5.3 Environment correction K
2
Environment correction K
2
is a correction term to account for the eect of
reected or absorbed sound on the surface sound pressure level measured. It is
10
frequency dependent and is used in standards using an enveloping measurement
surface such as ISO 3744 and 3746.
Two methods can be used to determine the environment correction factor:
An absolute comparison method or a method based on room absorption. For the
absolute comparison method we need a calibrated reference sound source with
characteristics which meet the requirements of ISO 6926. If we mount the ref-
erence sound source in the test room and then measure and calculate the sound
power level according to the procedure described in 5.1 without any environ-
ment correction term, the environment correction term of the test environment
can then be found as
K
2
= L

W
L
Wr
. (24)
Here, L

W
is the uncorrected sound power level measured according to the pro-
cedure described previously for a free eld and calculated by using (22), and
L
Wr
is the calibrated sound power level of the reference sound source. This
procedure is actually exactly the same as the comparison method discussed be-
fore to use a calibrated reference sound source to estimate the inuence of the
environment.
The other method to determine the environment correction is based on room
absorption measured. In that case the correction term can be calculated as
K
2
= 10 log
_
1 + 4
S
A
_
, (25)
where A is the equivalent sound absorption area of the room and S is the area
of the measurement surface. The problem in this method is that the sound ab-
sorption of the room has to be measured, which might be very time consuming.
If only A-weighted sound power is required, one can use an approximate
method to estimate the environment correction K
2A
by using approximate val-
ues of the mean sound absorption coecient of the room. In the lab exercise,
we will use this method.
5.4 Intensity methods (ISO 9614-1, 9614-2 and 9614 -3)
The relationship between sound intensity level and sound pressure level at any
point depends on the characteristics of the source, the characteristics of the
environment and distance of the measurement positions and the source. For the
previously described sound pressure methods, many restrictions therefore have
to be made for source characteristics and measurement environments in order
to make the uncertainty of the sound power determination within acceptable
limits.
The procedures specied in the sound pressure methods are not always ap-
propriate since it is not often possible to install and operate large equipment
in costly facilities such as anechoic or reverberation chambers to make high ac-
curacy measurements. These methods also can not be used in the presence of
high levels of extraneous noise generated by sources other than the source un-
der investigation. The intensity method is a complement of the sound pressure
methods and can be used under less restricted test conditions.
There are three standards of intensity methods dierences in sampling meth-
ods and accuracies. ISO 9614-1 is based on discrete-point sampling of the inten-
sity eld normal to the measurement surface and can reach precision accuracy
11
(grade 1), engineering accuracy (grade 2) and survey accuracy (grade 3). Both
ISO 9614-2 and ISO 9614-3 are based on scanning of the normal intensity over
the measurement surface with the engineering and survey accuracy and precision
accuracy, respectively.
The uncertainties when determining the sound power using intensity meth-
ods stem from the characteristics of the sound sources, extraneous sound elds,
the absorption of the source under test, the intensity-eld sampling and the
measurement procedure used. The standards also supply procedures to reach
a desired grade of accuracy. When needed, one can consult the corresponding
standards for details.
Following terms with respect to Field indicators F
1
F
4
in the three stan-
dards are often used when describing an intensity eld and the way to determine
the sound power. In the discussion below we follow the symbols of ISO 9614-1.
Temporal variability indicator
This is dened as
F
1
=
1

I
n

_
1
M 1
M

k=1
_
I
nk

I
n
_
2
, (26)
where

I
n
is the mean value for M short-time-average sample I
nk
.
This is an indicator of the temporal variability of the sound eld at the
selected measurement position or surface. If the indicator is larger than a certain
value, say 0.6, the sound eld at the measurement surface is not stationary. It
is always due to the inuence of extraneous noise intensity. In order to increase
the grade of accuracy one has to reduce the temporal variability or increase the
measurement period.
Surface pressure-intensity indicator
This is dened as
F
2
=

L
p

L
|I
n
|
, (27)
where

L
p
is the surface averaged sound pressure level and

L
|I
n
|
is the surface
averaged normal unsigned sound level, i.e., average of the magnitude of the
sound intensity only, no matter what is the direction of the intensity.
Negative partial power indicator
This is dened as
F
3
=

L
p

L
I
n
, (28)
The dierence compared with F
2
is that here signed intensity is used. This is
called negative partial power indicator.
Field non-uniformity indicator
This is dened as
F
4
=
1

I
n

_
1
N 1
N

i=1
_
I
ik

I
n
_
2
, (29)
12
This indicator species the eld non-uniformity from segment to segment.
In order to get a certain level of accuracy the condition
L
d
> F
2
(30)
must be fullled, where L
d
is a parameter of the measurement system, called
the dynamic capability index. If a chosen measurement surface does not satisfy
this criterion, some steps described in the standard have to be taken to improve
the measurement accuracy. Otherwise the measurement accuracy grade has to
be reduced.
In the laboratory exercise, we use sound intensity method with scanning and
follow standard ISO 9614-2.
13