Measuring Acoustic Absorption

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MEASURING ABSORPTION
Many customers ask us why some acoustic products have absorption coefficients greater than 1 and how profiled acoustic foam differs from flat sheet type acoustic foams. Generally acoustic products have what is called an 'absorption coefficient' which gives details of how effective they are over a range of frequencies. This figure ranges from zero (no sound absorption) to 1.0 where 100% of the sound is absorbed. If the figure is less than 1 it means that only half the sound is being absorbed at a particular frequency with the remainder either being reflected back or passing through the material. Sometimes product specifications also include an NRC (noise reduction coefficient) figure. This is an average figure of the midrange absorption coefficients between 250Hz and 2Khz. Occasionally absorption figures are stated in units called 'Sabins'. These can be rather misleading as this refers to total absorption over an area. To convert Sabins into coefficient figures you need to divide the Sabin figure by the surface area of the material in question. To obtain absorption figures a sufficient area of material is placed in a reverberant room and the decay time is measured at different frequencies before and after the test material is placed in the room. The difference between these two measurements allows the absorption to be calculated. Most absorption measurements are taken with the test material mounted directly on a wall but when you space absorbent material away from a wall or other hard surface the low frequency performance is improved so sometimes absorption figures that include spacing are often included in product specifications (i.e. E Mounting). It is not actually possible for a material to have an absorption coefficient of more than 1 but sound measurements can yield figures greater than 1. The reason for this is that all materials have a certain thickness but the edges which are not included in the surface area calculations also absorb some of the sound. As an example a 1200mm x 600mm x 100mm F/G Absorber has a front surface area of 0.72m but including the four edges the overall 'surface area' increases to 1.08m which is a 50% increase in surface area! The other problem is that a smaller panel will have test figures better than that of a larger panel because proportionally the smaller panel has more 'edge surface area' than that of a larger panel even if the thickness is the same for both! It gets worse! One last problem is that most acoustic foam panels are mounted next to each other on a wall or ceiling etc. This means that the edges are not absorbing any sound 'on-site' but were absorbing sound when the material was tested so the actual stated absorption figures will be around 1/3 down of any published figures which were arguably inflated by 50% in the first place when tested!! It is basically a slight 'flaw' in the test methods which produces figures above 1.0 as the test method does not take into account the edges of a panel. This can cause confusion and can make it difficult to compare one product against another but as a generalisation it's often wise to assume that when absorption products are mounted 'in-situ' they will provide less than the measured absorption figures so you should always go for the thickest foam the budget allows. When it comes to triangular type 'foam corner wedges' this disparity is even worse and you may get 50% less absorption than the stated figures especially at the lower frequencies. BACK
All information contained in these details is given in good faith but without warranty. Custom Audio Designs reserves the right to alter the specifications of any product without notice. Custom Audio Designs 2004

http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/articles/absorptionmeasurements.htm

11/18/2008