Room Constant

The room constant express an acoustic property of the room: R = A / (1- m) = Si i / (1- m) where R = room constant (m2 Sabine) A = absorption of the room (m2 Sabine) m = mean absorption coefficient of the room Si = individual surface area in the room (m2) i = absorption coefficient for individual surface in the room (2)

Absorption Coefficient
The sound absorption coefficient indicates how much of the sound is absorbed in the actual material. The absorption coefficient can be expressed as: = Ia / I i where Ia = sound intensity absorbed (W/m2) Ii = incident sound intensity (W/m2) (3)

Total Room Sound Absorption

The total sound absorption in a room can be expressed as: A = S1 1 + S2 2 + .. + Sn n = Si i where A = the absorption of the room (m2 Sabine) Sn = area of the actual surface (m2) n = absorption coefficient of the actual surface (4)

Mean Absorption Coefficient

The mean absorption coefficient for the room can be expressed as: am = A / S where am = mean absorption coefficient A = the absorption of the room (m2 Sabine) S = total surface in the room (m2) (5)

The sound absorption coefficient indicates how much of the sound is absorbed in the actual material. The absorption coefficient can be expressed as: = Ia / I i where Ia = sound intensity absorbed (W/m2) Ii = incident sound intensity (W/m2) Absorption coefficient - - for some common materials can be found in the table below: Material Plaster walls Unpainted brickwork Painted brickwork 3 mm plywood panel 6 mm cork sheet 6 mm porous rubber sheet 12 mm fiberboard on battens 25 mm wood wool cement on battens 50 mm slag wool or glass silk 12 mm acoustic belt Hardwood 25 mm sprayed asbestos 100 mm mineral wool Persons, each Sound Absorption Coefficient -0.01 - 0.03 0.02 - 0.05 0.01 - 0.02 0.01 - 0.02 0.1 - 0.2 0.1 - 0.2 0.3 - 0.4 0.6 - 0.07 0.8 - 0.9 0.5 - 0.5 0.3 0.6 - 0.7 0.65 2.0 - 5.0 (1)

Acoustic tiles 0.4 - 0.8 Note! The absorption coefficient varies with the frequency of sound.

Total Room Sound Absorption

The total sound absorption in a room can be expressed as: A = S1 1 + S2 2 + .. + Sn n = Si i where A = the absorption of the room (m2 Sabine) Sn = area of the actual surface (m2) n = absorption coefficient of the actual surface (2)

Mean Absorption Coefficient

The mean absorption coefficient for the room can be expressed as: am = A / S where am = mean absorption coefficient A = the absorption of the room (m2 Sabine) S = total surface in the room (m2) A rooms acoustic characteristics can be calculated with the formulas above, or estimated for typical rooms. Room acoustics describes how sound behaves in an enclosed space. The way that sound behaves in a room can be broken up into roughly four different frequency zones: The first zone is below the frequency that has a wavelength of twice the longest length of the room. In this zone sound behaves very much like changes in static air pressure. Above that zone, until the frequency is approximately 11,250(RT60/V)1/2, wavelengths are comparable to the dimensions of the room, and so room resonances dominate. The third region which extends approximately 2 octaves is a transition to the fourth zone. In the fourth zone, sounds behave like rays of light bouncing around the room (3)

When a wave reaches the boundary between one medium another medium, a portion of the wave

undergoes reflection and a portion of the wave undergoes transmission across the boundary.the amount of reflection is dependent upon the dissimilarity of the two media. For this reason, acoustically minded builders of auditoriums and concert halls avoid the use of hard, smooth materials in the construction of their inside halls. A hard material such as concrete is as dissimilar as can be to the air through which the sound moves; subsequently, most of the sound wave is reflected by the walls and little is absorbed. Walls and ceilings of concert halls are made softer materials such as fiberglass and acoustic tiles. These materials are more similar to air than concrete and thus have a greater ability to absorb sound. This gives the room more pleasing acoustic properties.