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Acoustics Exploration at Hopkins Center: Impact of Absorption Coefficients

Delve into the impact of absorption coefficients on sound propagation in various rooms at Hopkins Center, analyzing room characteristics, reverberation times, and sound quality to optimize acoustic settings for different purposes.

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Acoustics Exploration at Hopkins Center: Impact of Absorption Coefficients

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  1. Exploring Acoustics in the Hopkins Center Scott Niehaus

  2. Background • Sound that is emitted propagates in all directions as a wave and strikes all surfaces in its path • Sound can be absorbed, reflected, or transmitted by a surface • Soft surfaces like carpets tend to absorb sound while hard surfaces like walls reflect sound • Absorption coefficients range from 0-1, with 0 meaning totally reflecting and 1 meaning totally absorbing • Engineers target reverberation times of .8-1.0 seconds for band or orchestral rehearsal spaces and 1.0-1.3 seconds for choral rehearsal spaces

  3. Upper Buck • Room Characteristics: shaped like an oval, lots of hard walls and glass, 93.8 m3 • Average reverberation time: 0.88 seconds • Sabine’s formula: T60 = .161V/S • Absorption coefficient of room: .09 • ART with carpets and comforter: 0.72 seconds

  4. Upper Buck (cont.) • Adding carpets and my comforter did not greatly affect the spectrogram of a piano chord, it only changed the reverb time

  5. Lower Buck • Room Characteristics: more rectangular, all walls, larger than UB • Average reverberation time: 0.44 seconds • ART with carpets and comforter: 0.42 seconds • Absorption coefficient of room: unable to measure

  6. Individual Practice Room • Room Characteristics: 15.6 m3, small box, all walls, but not as smooth as upper buck • Average reverberation time: 0.25 seconds • Absorption coefficient of room: .265 • RT with comforter: 0.21 seconds • Absorption coefficient of room with comforter: .314

  7. Absorption Coefficients • From the data I gathered I was able to figure out the absorption coefficients of my comforter and the 3 rugs I used. • Absorption coefficient of my 3.5 m2 comforter: 0.796 • Absorption coefficient of 3 rugs totaling 2.7 m2 : 0.30

  8. Piano Analysis Short C Major chord bursts of the same volume produce significantly different spectrograms in the 3 rooms

  9. Conclusions • Room shape, size, and types of surfaces present all affect reverberation times and sound quality • When played on a piano, the shorter RTs corresponded harsher timbres • Individual rehearsal rooms do not need a long RT as there is nothing to blend with when playing alone • Higher sound quality of Upper Buck vs. Lower Buck corresponds with sentiments of my a cappella group

  10. The End

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