Acoustics Instruments and Measurements

May 2013, Caseros, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

SEAT ABSORPTION MEASUREMENT USING THE KATH & KUHL METHOD

AGUSTN Y. ARIAS 1
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Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. agustin.arias@outlook.com

1. INTRODUCTION The absorption coefficients of a seat arrangement allow estimating the absorption area of such seats when installed in the room for which they were chosen. There are several methods to measure the absorption coefficients of a seating array, but one of the most recognized and used is the Kath and Kuhl method. The aim of this report is to explain the methodology used to measure the absorption coefficients of a seat arrangement and extrapolate the results obtained to estimate the absorption that would produce these seats if they are installed on the ground floor of the Teatro Argentino de La Plata and Teatro Margarita Xirgu, both located in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2. KATH & KUHL METHOD The Kath and Kuhl method involves placing the seating in the corner of the reverberation chamber in rows with their intended row spacing. The exposed edges are covered with barriers for some of the measurements. The barriers need to be massive and stiff to reduce low frequency absorption. The barriers should be at least as high as the seating, and higher if any audience is present for an occupied measurement. The set-up is schematically shown in Figure 1. Though it seems that the array is mirrored in the adjacent walls of the chamber, thus effectively increasing its size, it is not effectively infinite as Kath and Kuhl thought. Diffraction effects are still present and so the measured absorption coefficient may still vary with sample size. The concept is to separately measure three absorption coefficients by carrying out measurements with and without barriers [1]: For an infinite array with no edges, yields an absorption coefficient , with side and front barriers in place. For the front edges, , by measuring with the side barrier only in place and combining the result for .

For the side edges, , by measuring with the front barrier only in place, and combining with the result for .

Figure 1. Set-up for Kath and Kuhl seating absorption measurement.

The following equations are used to obtain and :

and are the length, width and height of the barriers respectively. A1, A2 and A3 are the total absorption of the sample with both panels, front panel only, and side panel only, respectively. Finally, if the areas of the front edges S f, side edges Ss and plan area Sp of the hall are known, the absorption coefficient of the audience block is given by:
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Room with chairs grouped and Side panel. Room with chairs grouped and Front panel
3. LIMITATIONS OF THE MEASUREMENTS

The requirements that must be accomplished for the reverberation chamber are defined in the ISO-354 standard: "Measurement of sound absorption in a reverberation room" [2]. However, it was not possible to access a reverberation chamber, so the measurements were performed in a classroom in the Annex building of the National University of Tres de Febrero (Figure 2). Furthermore, under these conditions only six seats could be used to perform the measurements, which is a very small amount to extrapolate the results to a hall.

For these four conditions, an omnidirectional source (Dodecahedral loudspeaker) brand OUTLINE with its respective subwoofer was used. From this source a "Log Sine-Sweep" was reproduced, generated with the AURORA plugins package in Adobe Audition [3], with the following configuration:

Figure 3. Log-Sine sweep configuration

Figure 2. Classroom used as reverberation chamber. Microphones and source positions.

4. PROCEDURE 4.1. Background Noise Two background noise measurements were carried out in order to meet the acoustics conditions of the environment. Each measurement has duration of 30s. The Leq result was 62.5dB which allowed setting the level of radiation from the sound source so as to minimize the effects of this noise on the effective dynamic range of measurements. External condition, such as train and traffic noise, and the absence of sound insulation treatment in the classroom adversely affect the results obtained especially at low frequencies. 4.2. Reverberation time measurements. Four sets of measurements of the reverberation time (T20) of the room in different conditions were used: Empty Room. Room with chairs grouped and both panels.

This signal meets the flat spectrum requirements and maintains a high signal/noise ratio. Four Earthworks M50 microphones were used to record the signals reproduced by the source. So, four microphones in fixed positions and three sound source positions were used for all the measurements giving a total of 12 measurements for each arrangement.

Figure 4. Seat arrangement.

As it can be observed in Figure 4 there were two rows of three seats. Figure 5 shows the dimensions of a single seat.

A: Equivalent absorption area [m2] V: Room volume [m3] T: Reverberation time of the room [s] c: Sound velocity [343 m/s] m: Air attenuation coefficient [m-1] It was supposed that the temperature and the humidity were almost constant during the measurements, so the term was not taken account of. The speed of sound was set at . 5. RESULTS The following are the results obtained from the measurements. 5.1. Reverberation Time
Figure 5. Seat dimensions.

The area occupied by the seats is 2 m2, representing 8.9% of the area of the room (31.2 m2). 4.3. Measurements analysis Once all sound recordings of Log Sine-sweep were obtained (48 records total) those were analyzed. Firstly, the impulse responses were obtained at each measurement point using the convolution in AURORA plugins, between the recorded signal and the inverse filter of the sine-sweep (Figure 6).

Reverberation time results are shown in Table 1. These results allow obtaining the equivalent sound absorption area of each measurement condition.
Table 1. Reverberation time results
Frequency RT empty Rt with both RT with Front RT with Side [Hz] room (s) panels (s) Panel (s) Panel (s) 125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 1000 1250 1600 2000 2500 3150 4000 1,92 2,41 2,60 2,68 2,79 2,65 2,61 2,54 2,58 2,56 2,62 2,66 2,54 2,35 2,11 1,90 1,68 2,12 2,28 2,20 2,16 2,20 2,07 1,93 1,94 1,96 1,96 2,03 1,96 1,83 1,66 1,52 1,91 2,10 2,16 2,17 2,16 2,04 2,00 1,94 1,91 1,89 1,92 1,95 1,89 1,78 1,64 1,51 1,80 2,08 2,19 2,18 2,17 2,04 1,95 1,83 1,88 1,85 1,93 1,91 1,84 1,78 1,62 1,50

Figure 6. AURORA interface to obtain the Impulse Response.

From these results, A1 can be calculated performing the subtraction between the Aempty_room and Aboth_panels. The same procedure is applied to obtain A2 and A3 for each set. 5.2. Teatro Argentino de La Plata Figure 7 shows the results of the absorption coefficient associated with the ground floor seat area of the theater applying the method of Kath & Kuhl. To obtain these results the surfaces listed in Table 2 were used.

Then, using the software Dirac 3.0 of B&K brand, the reverberation time (T20) in 1/3 octave bands (125 - 4000 Hz) were calculated for the three measurement conditions. These reverberation times were obtained by averaging for the twelve values measured in each set. Then the equation of Sabines RT (Eq. 5) was used to obtain the equivalent sound absorption area Ae (empty room), A1, A2 and A3.

Table 3. Seat edges surfaces.

Surface Sf Ss Sp

Area [m2] 8,62 16,50 96,19

The results are very similar to those obtained for the Teatro Argentino de La Plata. To understand this fact, the terms in Eq.4 should be analyzed (Table 4).
Table 4. Relationships between the seats areas.

Term
Figure 7. Absorption coefficient results for the seat area of the Teatro Argentino de La Plata. Table 2. Seat edges surfaces.

Teatro Argentino de La Plata 0,051 0,394

Teatro Margarita Xirgu 0,089 0,17

Surface Sf Ss Sp

Area [m2] 15,20 116,08 294,00

The absorption coefficients obtained in each third octave band never exceed the value of 0.9. The low results obtained below 250 Hz were expected due to the low percentage of upholstered surface of the seats (Figure 5). It can be appreciated that as the frequency increases, the absorption coefficient increases, up to 630 Hz then tends to stabilize between 0.84 and 0.90. 5.3. Teatro Margarita Xirgu Figure 8 shows the results of the absorption coefficient associated with the ground floor seat area of the theater. To obtain these results the results the surfaces listed in Table 3 were used.

and are always less than 0.2 and are not dependent on the seating area of each theater. Because the values of those coefficients are so low and that the relationships between the surfaces of the seating areas are always less than 0,4, the multiplication between these values according to the Eq.4, are always less than 0,08, which produces very slight variations between the two theaters. 6. CONCLUSIONS The Kath & Kuhl method used to calculate the absorption coefficients of the seats area of each theater produced interesting results. First, the absorption coefficients below 250 Hz are always maintained less than 0.45, which is reasonable since the seats have very little upholstered surface. These results are affected by the limitations of the classroom used as a reverberant chamber, since it does not meet the minimum requirements defined in the standard ISO 354, and its dimensions do not allow locating inside a greater number of seats, which is highly recommended in order to obtain reliable results. As explained above, the relationships between the seating areas (front, side and plan) produce too little deference between the two theaters. In addition, the measurements were performed without considering the floor material of each theater (carpet for the Teatro Argentino de La Plata and parquet for the Teatro Margarita Xirgu), which also modifies the results. 7. REFERENCES

Figure 8. Absorption coefficient results for the seat area of the Teatro Margarita Xirgu.

[1]Cox DAntonio. Acoustic absorbers and diffusers. p.72 [2] ISO-354, Measurement of sound absorption in a reverberation room.
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[3]Farina, Angelo. Impulse Response Measurements by Exponential Sine Sweeps. Parma, 18 October 2008.