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Applied Acoustics
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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Using methods and techniques of sound quality engineering, the noise of the heating, ventilation and air-
Received 8 January 2007 conditioning system (HVAC) of an automobile model was studied. Such noise has a great inuence on
Received in revised form 17 June 2008 vehicle acoustical comfort and on overall quality perception of a vehicle. The study was divided into
Accepted 18 June 2008
two steps. The rst step aimed to identify the most signicant attributes that contribute to the perception
Available online 6 August 2008
of similarity or dissimilarity of this kind of noise, using the paired comparison technique and correlation
of the results with psychoacoustic models. Loudness, spectral composition and tonality, represented by
PACS:
the psychoacoustic models of loudness, sharpness, tone-to-noise ratio and prominence were found to
43.50.Qp
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be the most important dimensions for the perception of similarity and dissimilarity of HVAC-noise.
In the second step of the study a model to predict subjective response to HVAC sounds using the
Keywords: semantic differential technique was developed. In particular the perception of annoyance was studied
HVAC system and it is shown that the annoyance caused by the HVAC noise can be satisfactorily described by Zwickers
Sound quality stationary loudness model, provided that the HVAC noises do not present tonal components. The loud-
Similarity ness model also predicts scores on a quiet/loud scale. Both results conrm the power of the loudness
Paired comparison dimension and its model introduced by Zwicker for the overall quality of stationary broadband sounds
Semantic differential
without slow uctuations or tonal components. From the annoyance model developed in this study a
maximum acceptable loudness level for HVAC-systems can be determined.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0003-682X/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2008.06.010
R.P. Leite et al. / Applied Acoustics 70 (2009) 636645 637
This part of the study was limited to the investigation of the the same model, taken from the production line. A headphone/
ventilation system alone, that is, the air-conditioning and engine microphone headset (NoiseBook from HEAD acoustics), placed
were switched off during recordings. This was done for two rea- on a persons head at the drivers position, was used with inde-
sons, (1) most cars of this model are still sold without air-condi- pendent of direction equalization [3,4].
tioning, and (2) for reasons of simplication, otherwise a very Windows and doors were always closed; the driver seat posi-
large number of combinations need to be considered, i.e., different tion was the same in all recordings; all valves of the air outlets
thermal conditions (air-conditioner loads), different (idle) engine were opened, and the direction of air ow was set to the center di-
sounds, sounds from the whole car at different velocities on differ- rectly towards the oor Fig. 1 to prevent noise induced by air ow
ent surfaces, etc. Therefore, the sounds being studied here are gen- at the microphones. All combinations of fan speed and direction of
erated only by the electric motor and the air ow. Further air ow were recorded. As the HVAC system has four fan speeds
investigations should be carried out considering more complex and four directions of air ow, sixteen conditions were recorded
working conditions of the HVAC system. for each car. For later analysis all recordings were edited, resulting
The car model chosen to make the recordings was a newly in sound les of 5 seconds duration. Only this length was consid-
introduced compact car model, developed in Brazil and destined ered, after consulting the literature (see [5]). If the sound is too
for the Brazilian and European markets. The model was chosen long, the subject will be bored, if it is too short, the subject will
for several reasons, the three most important being: (1) the high not perceived the sound characteristics.
production volume, resulting in a large number of cars available
for recording at the end of the production line without interfering 2.2. Subjective evaluation
too much in the activities of the line, (2) the fact that this model is
also being exported to Europe, a market with high quality de- The aim of the subjective evaluation of similarity was to reduce
mands, and (3) the fact that the percentage of cars of this model the number of sounds presented to subjects and evaluated by them
sold without air-conditioning unit is signicant. in further procedures and to determine the perceptual dimensions
The study was divided into two steps. In the rst (see Section 2), that are important for similarity ratings of HVAC sounds. Using the
the HVAC noise of fteen cars of the same model in sixteen paired comparison technique and a ratio-scale (Stone or line-scale)
different arrangements of fan speed and direction of air ow was with the anchors Very similar and Not very similar (the Portu-
recorded. Consequently, a large quantity of sound les was guese expressions were Muito parecidos and Pouco parecidos), as
obtained (15 cars 16 arrangements = 240 sound les). To reduce shown in Fig. 2, similarity of sounds were scaled by subjects, mark-
the number of sounds to be characterized and analyzed, a subjec- ing on the line-scale the point that best represented their impres-
tive evaluation of similarity, using the paired comparison tech- sion of similarity.
nique, was carried out. By means of statistical analysis (scatter Prior to the subjective evaluation procedure the sounds were
plots and multiple linear regressions) of objective and subjective grouped into 5 clusters (Table 1). Clusters 14 were sets of sounds
data, and additional analysis of qualitative data, the most signi- at the same fan speed and direction of air ow, cluster 5 was a set
cant characteristics of this kind of noise were identied. of sounds of the same car, at different fan speeds and directions of
In the second step (see Section 3), new recordings were taken air ow. Clustering aimed to reduce the number of possible combi-
in twelve cars. Based on the underlying dimensions of similarity nations for the paired comparison technique and, accordingly, to
ratings of HVAC sounds a set of sounds was chosen to be char- reduce the time required for the subjective evaluation without lim-
acterized and evaluated using the semantic differential tech- iting the variability unacceptably. Clusters were chosen in such a
nique. Using multiple linear regressions relations between way they would embrace a high and a low fan speed, two HVAC
subjective results and psychoacoustic models were determined models (Simple/Heating was not included because only two cars
and models to predict subjective response to HVAC sounds are of this model were recorded), all directions of air ow, and there
proposed. It is shown that the annoyance caused by the HVAC would be similar and different sounds within each cluster, as there
noise can be satisfactorily described by Zwickers stationary is a high variability in the noise of cars of the same model even at
loudness model. the end of the production line [6]. Furthermore, the sounds with
The HVAC system of the car model under investigation has four higher tonality had to be included. The number of sounds in each
fan speeds and four air outlets, here called Front, Windshield, Foot cluster depended on the number of cars of a model which were
and Foot/Windshield. Furthermore, three different kinds are available to be recorded.
available:
In this paper, the sounds will be referred to as, for example, car
002, Front-4. This means the recording of the HVAC noise of the car
002, working at fan speed 4 and air outlet Front.
Binaural recordings of ventilation noise (air-conditioning and Fig. 1. All valves of the air outlets were opened, and the direction of air ow was set
engine were always switched off) were made in fteen cars of downwards.
638 R.P. Leite et al. / Applied Acoustics 70 (2009) 636645
togram for pair 9. Of the subjects, 44% marked between zero and 2,
while 22% of subjects marked between 8 and 10. However, the
score distribution of some pairs looks like the normal distribution
Fig. 2. The ratio-scale used in the rst subjective evaluation.
or half of it. Thus, nonparametric statistical methods t best the
data of this study.
Analysis of the mean scores of the repeated pairs showed that
Table 1 subject responses were coherent. The equal pairs 3 and 34 had
The ve clusters of the evaluation mean values of 7.2 and 6.7 and standard deviations of 2.2 and
Cluster Model Working conditions Number of 2.4, respectively. In the same way, the equal pairs 7 and 28 had
sounds mean values of 7.2 and 7.5 and standard deviations of 2.4 and
1 Simple Foot-4 5 2.7, respectively. Application of the nonparametric Friedmans test
2 Air-conditioning Foot/Windshield-4 8 revealed that there were no signicant differences between the
3 Air-conditioning Front-2 8 means of the repeated pairs. Nevertheless, individual responses
4 Simple Windshield-2 5
5 Simple Various conditions of the same car 7
of many subjects diverged considerably between one pair and its
repetition.
2.2.1. Subject proles and conversion of responses to numbers 2.4.2. Computation of the multiple linear regression variables
Twenty seven voluntary subjects took part in the evaluation. The well documented psychoacoustic models loudness, sharp-
The mean age was 29.7 years (standard deviation: 9.7 years) and ness, tone-to-noise ratio, prominence, roughness and uctuation
82% were male. Seventy-four percent of the subjects said they strength (see [7]) were applied to all sounds using dBSONIC soft-
owned a car or often drove their family car, 74% said they worked ware and diffuse eld parametrisation. Although subjects did not
with acoustics, and this means they were Masters or doctoral stu- make comments about the roughness or uctuation of the sounds,
dents in acoustics or undergraduted students that work on the pro- Brazilian Portuguese speaking subjects have difculty verbalizing
jects of the laboratory. On the one hand, this is a limitation, as the subjective impressions on sounds (see also [810]), these models
jury does not represent reliably all customers of this category of were included as they are very commonly employed in sound qual-
car, although all subjects are potential customers of this car. On ity investigations.
the other hand, it was expected that these subjects would be more As the aim of the subjective evaluation is to investigate the sim-
critical or at least have more ability to express their compliants ilarity perception, the difference modulus for the values of the
usually subjects face diculties in rating sound even when perceiv-
ing the sound characteristics, and this might be due to the limita-
tions of Brazilian Portuguese regarding the availability of words
and expressions to describe sound impressions, when compared
with languages like German. 12
Subjects were seated in the drivers position of a real car, which
was parked inside the garage of the laboratory. Sounds were pre- 10
sented to them via electrodynamic headphones.
Number of subjects
2
To apply parametric statistical methods, assumptions about the
population scores and the sample randomness are required. These
assumptions are suitable for experimental sciences, but in many 0
0 2 4 6 8
cases not for behavioral ones. In this study, the response distribu-
Individual subject responses
tions showed that the population normality hypothesis can not be
applied. As an example, Fig. 3 shows the subjective responses his- Fig. 3. Histogram of Individual subject responses for pair 9.
R.P. Leite et al. / Applied Acoustics 70 (2009) 636645 639
1
This is in agreement with the expected mean of the subjective data collected with
a limited scale. Some subjects may rate even identical sounds with positions that
correspond to values lower than the maximum degree. As they can not overstate the
Fig. 4. The division of loudness spectrum into six bands. maximum, the mean subjective rating is likely to be less than ten.
640 R.P. Leite et al. / Applied Acoustics 70 (2009) 636645
DloudI , DloudII , and DloudIII as they are not correlated with Dsharp- 10
ness (they are related to low and medium frequencies of the
spectrum).
8
y 8:3 9:4 DloudVI 0:45 Dtnr 0:97 Dprominence
Model response
0:0002 Dmpf 6
2
Fig. 7 shows the subjective responses on the abscissa and the pre- 4
diction of these responses, according to Eq. (1), on the ordinate.
The straight line indicates the cases where model responses are
2
equal to subjective responses. Fig. 8 shows the same data, but
according to Eq. (2).
As the sounds of clusters 1 and 2 were for fan speed 4, their 0
loudness values were similar. Therefore, MLR was applied to the
pairs of clusters 1 and 2. A high correlation R2 0:91 is achieved 2
with only one variable (Dsharpness) as given in Eq. (3). Fig. 9 shows 0 2 4 6 8 10
the subjective responses on the abscissa and the prediction of Subjective response (similarity)
these responses, according to Eq. (3), on the ordinate.
Fig. 7. Comparison of subjective responses for similarity of all clusters and the
y 8:4 24 Dsharpness 3 prediction of these responses by Eq. (1). The straight line indicates the cases where
model responses are equal to subjective responses.
MLR was applied also to the pairs of clusters 3 and 4, as the sounds
of these clusters were all for fan speed 2 and their loudness values
were similar. However, contrary to the MLR results of clusters 1 and
2, Dsharpness is not correlated with subjective responses of clusters
3 and 4 R2 0:2. Instead, the model uses DloudIII and DloudV as 10
shown in Eq. (4). Fig. 10 shows the subjective responses on the ab-
scissa and the prediction of these responses, according to Eq. (4), on
8
the ordinate.
4 6
MLR was also applied to the pairs of cluster 5. This cluster has four
sounds for fan speed 4 (including the reference) and one sound for 4
each fan speed 1, 2 and 3. Thus, the loudness values of these sounds,
estimated with Zwickers model, were very different. A high corre- 2
lation R2 0:95 was achieved only with Dloudness, as shown in
Eq. (5). Fig. 11 shows the subjective responses on the abscissa and
the prediction of these responses on the ordinate.
0
with the minimum and the maximum values of the 95% prediction 5
interval in Table 2 for each Training pair. The table also shows the
subjective response obtained in the Training session. 4
From Table 2, it is clear that the predictions given by (1) and (2)
3
are closer to subjective responses than others and all subjective re-
sponses are within the prediction intervals. 2
Note that Eq. (4) can not be applied to pair Training 1 as it is de-
rived from the sounds of fan speed 2 and this pair had the sounds 1
of fan speed 4. Similar considerations were taken into account for
the pairs Training 2 and Training 3. 0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Table 2
Prediction of the subjective responses of the pairs Training 1 to Training 3 and the minimum and maximum values of the 95% prediction interval
Table 4
The sounds used in the second subjective evaluation
3 3
2
2
notannoying / annoying
Model response
1
1
0
0
1
1
2
2 3
0 5 10 15 20 25 3 2 1 0 1 2 3
loudness (soneGD) Subjective response (notannoying / annoying)
Fig. 16. Scatter plot with loudness on the x-axis and the not-annoying/annoying Fig. 18. Comparison of subjective responses for the not-annoying/annoying scale
scale on the y-axis. and the prediction of these responses by Eq. (6). The straight line indicates the cases
where model responses are equal to subjective responses.