Transfer function technique for impedance and absorption

measurementsin an impedancetube using a single microphone

W.T. Chu
NationalResearch
Councilof Canada,Divisionof BuildingResearch,
MontrealRoad,BuildingM-27,
Ottawa, Canada K1A OR6

(Received11 December1985;acceptedfor publication11 April 1986)

Usinga periodicpseudorandom sequenceasthenoisesource,it ispossible
to implement thetwo-
microphone transferfunctiontechniquefor impedance andabsorption measurement in an
impedancetubewith a singlemicrophone, therebyeliminating theelaboratecalibrating
procedureandanyerrorassociated withphase-mismatching. Resultsobtained by theproposed
procedurecompared wellwith thoseobtained by thestandardstanding-wave-ratiomethod.
PACS numbers: 43.55.Ev, 43.85.Bh

INTRODUCTION ignoredin thepreviousanalyses.

The complexreflectionco-
The advent of digital electronicshas revolutionized efficient
R of a specimen
locatedat oneendof an impedance
many acousticmeasurements. One advancedmeasuring tube (Fig. 1) is relatedto the transferfunctionH12by the
technique is thetwo-microphone transferfunctionmethod following equation9:
ofmeasuring in-ductacoustic
properties
usingrandomexci- a ( f ) = ([H•2(f) -- e-s(ik+")]
tation.It wasintroduced by SeybertandRossI andfurther
eS(ik
+ a)__312( f ) ] - 1}e2L(ik
+ a), ( 1)
developed by ChungandBlaser. 2Applications ofthistech-
niqueformeasuring acoustic
propertiesof tubeor ductsys- where//12istheacoustictransferfunctionfor thetwomicro-
temshavebeenreported byseveral 3-6Thenewtech- phonelocations,
authors. f isthefrequency, k isthewavenumber, a is
niqueis claimedto be about40 timesfasterthan the the attenuationconstant,s isthe microphone separation,
and
conventional standing-wave-ratio(SWR) method. 2 It re- L is thedistanceof microphone No. 1fromthesurfaceof the
quires,however,a pairof phase-matched microphones, or specimen. For broadband excitation, H12 is givenby the
elaboratecalibratingprocedures. cross-spectraldensity between the two microphone signals,
Recently,Fahy7demonstrated thepossibility
of usinga divided by theauto-spectral density of theNo. 1 microphone
singlemicrophone forthistechnique.
Independently, Chu8 signal.
alsocameup with the sameideafor moregeneralapplica- The normal absorptioncoefcient a and the normal
tions,includingthoseinvolvingsoundintensitymeasure- specificacousticimpedance Z/pc of thespecimen aregiven
ments.A detailedinvestigationof the single-microphone by the followingequations:
transferfunctiontechniquefor impedance and absorption a- 1--IR 12 (2)
measurements in an impedancetubeis reportedin thispa- and
per.
Z/pc= (1 +R)/(1 --R), (3)
I. REVIEW OF THE TECHNIQUE wherepistheairdensity
andcisthespeed
ofsound.
Assum-
In 1977,Seybert a two-microphone inga = 0, Eq.( 1) reduces
andRossI proposed toChung
andBlaser's
result
2
randomexcitationmethodfor determiningnormalacoustic R ( f ) = { [H12(f ) -- e-i•s]/[ e•S_ H12(f ) ] }ei•2L.
properties
in a tube,including
theeffectof a meanflow.In (4)
this-method, the auto-spectral
densitiesand the cross-spec-
tral densityof two microphone signalsare usedin a setof
simultaneous
equations
to deduce
thecorresponding
spec-
H P 3582A
tral functions of the incident and reflected waves. The im-
SPECTRUM
pedance
canbecalculated
subsequently
fromthesespectral A NA LYZ ER

functions. M I CROPHONES

In 1980,Chungand Blaser
closed-form
expression
2 deriveda conciseand
relatingthecomplexreflectioncoef-
POWER
AMPLIFIER

ficientto the measuredtransferfunctionof the acousticpres-

suresat two microphonepositions.Their formulationis
basedontheimpulse-response
functionandontheassump-
tionof a stationary
randomprocess.
Chu9deriveda similar
resultusingthe traditionalsingle-frequency
approach.He
was able to include the tube-attenuation effect, which was •OLOUDSPEAKER
TEST
SPECIMEN
•
a)Presented
in part at the 12thInternationalCongress
on Acoustics,
Tor- FIG. 1.Testapparatus
andinstrumentation
forthetransferfunctiontech-
onto, 24-31 July 1986. niqueof measuring
impedanceandabsorption
coefficient.

555 J.Acoust.
Soc.Am.80(2),August
1986 0001-4966/86/080555-06500.80 555

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 A studyby ChungandBlaseronthesingularcondition, whereP(f) istheFouriertransformof thepressure
signal
e#'s- H•2 = 0, reveals
thatR becomes
indeterminate
when p(t). The conditionGpa2(f), which is equal to
ks = rn•' for rn = 1,2,3,.... (5) «[P•*( f )P•( f ) ], isthecross-spectral
density
ofp• andp•,
andGpa,(f) denotes theauto-spectral
density
ofp•.Equa-
Thus,to avoidthesepointsup to a frequency
f,,, the micro- tion (7) can be written as
phonespacings mustbe chosensuchthat
H12(f)
s < c/2f,, . (6)
= [P:(f)P,*(f)S(f)S*(f)]/[IP,(f)l:l$(f)l •]
Besidesthelimitation,thechoiceors andL isalsogoverned
by accuracyconsiderations. Seybertand Soenarko •ø have = [G•,,s(f)Gs•(f)]/[G•,a,(f)Gss(f)]. (8)
shownanalyticallythat randomerrorscanbeminimizedby If theprocess
isstationary,
G•,,s
andGs•,•
donothavetobe
maintaininga highcoherence betweenthe two microphone determinedsimultaneously. A singlemicrophone can be
signals,which impliesthat s shouldbe small. However, a usedto measure,sequentially, the pressureat the two loca-
smallmicrophonespacingwill reducethe accuracyof the tions.Thusanysystematic errorsrelatedto thephasemis-
measurements at low frequencies
becausethe magnitudeof matchanduncertainty regarding effective
microphone sepa-
thetransferfunctionapproaches unitywhenthewavelength ration will be eliminatedor minimized.It is necessary,
of soundis very much greaterthan s. Experimentalevi- however, to usea deterministicsignaltomakethisapproach
dence •øalsoindicates
thathighcoherence maynotbereal- practical. Oneof thebestsignals to useistheperiodic pseu-
izedwhena microphone locationcoincideswitha nodepoint dorandom sequence becauseit iseffectively
a multitonesig-
in the soundfield.This suggeststhat differentmicrophone nal with an almostflat-amplitude spectrum.•
positionsandspacingshavetobeusedto coverthefrequency The following experiment was performed to checkthe
rangebeingstudied,assupported by Fahy'sexperiment.7 feasibilityof thisproposal. Two 0.64-cm(l-in.) Bruel&
Kjaer microphones weremounted,flushwith thewall, in an
II. MEASUREMENT OF H•: USING A SINGLE impedance tube (as canbe seenin Fig. 1) with L ----13 cm
MICROPHONE
ands = 3 cm. The tubeis a 10.2-cm-diam PVC pipe,ap-
By definition, proximately 95 cm long,drivenat oneendby a smallKEF
H•2(f ) = P2(f )/P•( f ) = G•,•,
2( f )/G•,•,,( f ), (7)

10 1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

-5
0.2

-10 , I , I , I • I • I • I t I , I , I , 0

180 180

-- SIMULTANEOUS SAMPLING
L -- 14 cm
..... SEQUENTIALSAMPLI NO s- 6 cm

-180 • s:3cm
0
, I, I,
500
I I I • I • I • I • I , I ,
1000 1500 2000 2500
-180 , I • I
500
I I • I
1000
• I i I
1500
• I ,
2000
I , I ,
2500

FREQUENCY. Hz FREQUENCY, Hz

FIG. 2. Comparison
of themagnitude andphaseof thetransferfunction FIG. 3.Comparison ofthemagnitude
andphaseofthereflection
coefficient
obtainedbytwomethodsina 10.2-cm-diam
plastic
tubewitha4.9-cm-thick of a 5-cm-thick
glass-fiber
sample
measured
in animpedance tubewiththe
plastic-foamtermination. newtechniquefor two repeatedruns.

556 J.Acoust.
Soc.Am.,Vol.80,No.2,August
1986 W.T.Chu:
Transfer
function
technique
withsingle
microphone 556

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 loudspeaker.For this tube, the upper frequencylimit for driven by a horn driver, mountedon the side,to allow the
plane-wavepropagationisabout2 kHz. An HP 3582A dual- probe-tubemicrophoneto traversealongthe centerof the
channeldigital spectrumanalyzer,usedfor computingthe tube.Experiencehasshownthat it is necessary to usea very
spectralfunctions,has a built-in periodicpseudorandom- stablemicrophone for theproposed
single-microphone tech-
sequence generator,and can produce128 spectrallinesfor nique.A 0.64-cm(4•-in.)BruelandKjaermicrophone
was
the transferfunctioncomputation.A plastic-foamsample, found to be satisfactory.Other data acquisitionequipment
4.9 cm thick, wasusedasthe testspecimen. remained the same.
First, the two microphonesignalsweresampledsimul- Two differenttypesof acousticalmaterial were usedin
taneously
to establish
the reference
quantityG•,•,2/G•,•,
'. thisinvestigation:a 5-cm-thickglass-fibersampleanda 4.9-
Then the sourcesignaland eachof the microphonesignals cm-thickplastic-foamsamplewith a perforatedvinyl back-
weredigitizedsimultaneously,
in pairstakensequentially,
to ing.The microphonelocationswerechosento befairly close
give[ Gp,s
Gsp2
]/[ G•o,G• ]. Onlyoneperiodoftheperiodic to the specimen,so that the tube attenuationcould be ne-
signalwasused,and no averagingwasperformed.A com- glected.Figure3 showsa comparison of the magnitudeand
parisonof the magnitudeandphaseof H•2, obtainedby these phaseof the reflectioncoefficientof the 5-cm-thickglass-
two differentprocedures,ispresentedin Fig. 2. Resultsindi- fiber sample,measuredwith the new single-microphone
catethat the proposedsingle-microphone techniqueis feasi- techniquefor two repeatedruns,usingonlyoneperiodof the
ble. data.Althoughtheresultisacceptable, additionalaveraging
A more detailed investigationwas carried out, subse- could be beneficial.
quently,in a smallerimpedancetube equippedwith a tra-
versingprobe-tubemicrophone,suchthat the acousticprop- III. AVERAGING PROCEDURE
ertiesof any specimencan be measuredby the proposed With theHP 3582A spectrumanalyzer,it ismuchfaster
single-microphone techniqueand the standardSWR meth- and easierto performthe followingensembleaveraging:
od underthe sameconditionfor comparison.The tubehasa
diameterof 5.75 ½mand is approximately107½mlong. It is <H,2(f)) = <G•,.s(f)/G•,•,,
(f))<G,e• (f)/Gs,(f)).
(9)
However,anotherprocedurecouldbe

L=14 cm 1.0

0.8 L : 11 cm
s: 3 cm
0.8

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.4

0.2

0.2

180 o

m ACCORDING TO EQ. 10 18o

..... ACCORDING TO EO. 9 -- SINGLE-MICROPHONE TRANSFER
FUNCTION TECHNIQUEWITH
16 AVERAGES

ß S•/R •IETHOD

-180 ,, I , ], I, I, I, I, I • I
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
i , i , i , I , i , I ,
FREQUENCY, Hz
-180 , I , I , 1
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

FREQUENCY, Hz
FIG. 4. Comparisonof the magnitudeandphaseof thereflectioncoefficient
of a 5-cm-thickglass-fiber
samplemeasuredin an impedancetubewith the FIG. 5. Comparison of the magnitudeandphaseof thereflectioncoefficient
newtechniqueusingtwo differenttypesof ensemble averaging.Eight aver- of a 5-cm-thickglass-fibersamplemeasuredin an impedancetubeby two
ageswere used. different methods.

557 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 80, No. 2, August 1986 W. T. Chu: Transfer functiontechniquewith singlemicrophone 557

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 (H,2(f)) -- ([Gp,s(f)Gsp=
(f) ]/[Gp•,,(f)Gss(f) ]). V. EFFECT OF MICROPHONE SEPARATION
(10)
AlthoughEq. (6) providesan approximate guideline
Yet, as shownin Fig. 4, the measuredreflectioncoefficients for choosing
themicrophone separation
s, a moreprecise
of the glass-fiber
sample,usingthesetwo waysof averaging, relationship
willbeuseful. It turnedoutthatthebounding
showno significantdifferencesexceptat the low frequencies. valuesbetweens andf,• arefairlywelldefined,
asshownby
The discrepancyseemedto be causedby othereffects,sinceit theresultsdepictedin Figs.7 and8. It is evidentfromthese
wasfoundthat repeatabilitywasnot significantlyimproved, results that
evenwith averagingat theselow frequencies, whenthe sepa- s=0.7(c/2f,•) (11)
ration of the microphonepositionswas small.The effectof
should be sufficient.
the microphoneseparationis discussed in Sec.V. For subse-
quentinvestigations,ensembleaveraging,accordingto Eq. Figures 7 and 8 also show that more accurateresults
(10), was used. couldbeobtainedat lowfrequencies with largermicrophone
separations.This is clearly illustratedby the additionalre-
IV. COMPARISON WITH THE SWR METHOD sultspresentedin Fig. 9 for the measuredabsorptioncoeffi-
cientsof the 4.9-cm-thickplastic-foamsample,usingdiffer-
The reflectioncoefficientsof the two specimenswere ent microphone spacings.Figure 9(d) indicates that
measuredin the small impedancetube, under conditions
locatingthe microphonefarther away from the specimen
similarto thoseof the glass-fiber
sample,by both the pro- alsoimprovedtheperformance at lowfrequencies, sinceHn
posedsingle-microphone techniqueof the transferfunction couldbe measuredmore accuratelywhenthe microphone
method and an improved version of the standard SWR locationswerenotin thebroadantinoderegionsofthestand-
method.
'2Results
arecompared
in Figs.5 and6. Exceptfor ingwavesat theselow frequencies. However,somedeterior-
the low frequencies,the agreementis fairly good.The pro- ationin performance occurredat theintermediate frequen-
posedtechniquetooklessthan 5 min to provide128frequen- ciesbecause oneof themicrophone positions coincidedwith
cy points,whereasthe SWR methodrequiredat least30 min
to give 15 frequency points. Based on the repeatability
check,the SWR methodis more precise.
1.0

1.0
S I NGLE-MI CROPHONE TRANSFER
FUNCTION TECHNIQUE WITH 0.8
16 AVERAGES
0.8
SWR METHOD

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.2

18o

180 mL: 11 cm, s = 3 cm

..... L: 17 cm, s = 9 cm
_ L = 11 cm
_ s = 3cm

_ '-%.

-180 , I , I ,
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
-180 i I • I , I , I , I , I , I , ! , I ,
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 FREQUENCY, Hz
FREQUENCY, Hz
FIG. 7. Comparison ofthemagnitude
andphaseofthereflection
coefficient
FIG. 6. Comparison of themagnitudeandphaseof thereflectioncoefficient of a 5-cm-thickglass-fiber
samplemeasured
in an impedance
tubewiththe
of a 4.9-cm-thickplastic-foam
samplemeasured in an impedance tubeby newtechniqueusingtwo differentmicrophone separations.
Sixteenaver-
two different methods. ageswere used.

558 J. Acoust.Soc. Am., Vol. 80, No. 2, August1986 W.T. Chu:Transfer functiontechniquewithsinglemicrophone 558

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 1.0

1.oL
I-
-SINGLE-MICROPHON
FUNCTION
TRANSFER
TECHNIQUE
WITH
0.8
0 8•- 32AVERAGES
ß SWR METHOD

0.6 0 6

0.4 O4

0.2 o21-

o
•
Of •
xr,•ßI • I •
s:18
I
cm ,
100 200 300 400 500
18o
FREQUENCY, Hz
IL = 11 cm, s=3 cm
,

..... L :28 cm, s=20cm

FIG. 10.Comparison
of theabsorption
coefficient
ofa 4.9-cm-thickplastic-
foamsamplemeasuredin an impedancetubeby two differentmethods.

beobtainedwith the properchoiceof microphonelocations;

however,a smallsystematic error occursat frequencies be-
low 250 Hz. The exact causeof the error is not clear, al-
thoughthe two peaksat 120 and 160 Hz are known to be
causedby the 60-Hz hum and the fundamental resonance
modeof the tube,respectively.
Additionalexperimentswill
• I • I • I I ] •,1 • I • i , I , I , be conducted to resolve these difficulties.
-18o
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

FREQUENCY, Hz Vl. CONCLUSION

FIG. 8. Comparisonof the magnitudeandphaseof the reflectioncoefficient The two-microphonetransferfunction method for im-
of a 5-cm-thickglass-fibersamplemeasuredin an impedancetubewith the pedanceand absorptionmeasurements, in impedancetubes,
new techniqueusingtwo differentmicrophoneseparations.Sixteenaver-
ageswere used.
has been simplifiedby usinga periodic pseudorandomse-
quenceasthe noisesource,so that a sequentialsamplingof
the pressuresignalsat two locations,by a singlemicrophone,
the nodesof someof thesefrequencies.
Thusit isnecessary to
can replacethe original requirementof simultaneoussam-
try differentmicrophonelocationsandseparations for accu-
pling. Errors and difficultiesassociatedwith phase-mis-
rate measurements. This shouldposeno seriousdrawback
matchingin the two-microphonetransferfunctionmethod
sincethe experimentaltechniqueis very efficient.
are thereby eliminated, making the new measuringtech-
Figure 10showsthat goodresultsat low frequencies can
niquehighly practical.
Resultsdeterminedby the new techniquecompared
wellwith thoseobtainedby the SWR method.Althoughthis
0.8 : {[)}L: 14cm, new techniqueis not as preciseas the SWR method, it is
0.6 morethananorderof magnitudefasterandisquiteadequate
0. zl for routineimpedanceandabsorptionmeasurements. Expe-
riencehasindicatedthat differentmicrophone locationsand
0.2
separations haveto beusedto covera widefrequencyrange,
0 and someensembleaveragingis necessary if no frequency
1.0 averagingis performed.
0.8
L (c}
L:17
cm. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
0.6
This paperis a contributionfrom the Division of Build-
0.4
ing Research,National-ResearchCouncil of Canada.
0.2

0 II! , I , I , I ,
100 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500 1A.F. Seybert
andD. F. Ross,"Experimental
determination
of acoustic
propertiesusing a two-microphonerandom-excitationtechnique,"J.
FREQUENCY, Hz
Acoust. Soc. Am. 61, 1362-1370 (1977).
FIG. 9. The absorptioncoefficient
of a 4.9-cm-thickplastic-foamsample 2j.y. ChungandD. A. Blaser,
"Transfer
function
method
ofmeasuring
in-
measuredin an impedancetubewith the newtechniqueusingdifferentmi- duct acousticproperties:I. Theory, II. Experiment,"J. Acoust. Soc.Am.
crophonepositionsand separations.Thirty-twoaverageswereused. 68, 907-921 (1980).

559 J. Acoust.Soc. Am., Vol. 80, No. 2, August1986 W.T. Chu:Transfer functiontechniquewith singlemicrophone 559

Redistribution subject to ASA license or copyright; see http://acousticalsociety.org/content/terms. Download to IP: 139.78.253.122 On: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 22:29:22
 3M. Nishimura,S.Fukatsu,andK. Akamutsu,"Measurements of transfer 8W. T. Chu, "Single-microphone methodfor certainapplications of the
matricesof duct elementsand sourceimpedance
usingthe pair-micro- soundintensitytechnique,"J. SoundVib. 101,443-445 (1985).
phonetechnique,"
Proc.Inter-Noise83,395-398(1983). 9W.T. Chu, "Extension of the two-microphone transferfunctionmethod
4L.FrancoandG. Guglielmone, "Determination of theacoustical
imped- for impedance tubemeasurements," J. Acoust.Soc.Am. (submitted for
anceof complex
geometry slotsusedin automotive exhaust
system by publication).
meansofa measurement
procedure in a tube,"Proc.Inter-Noise
83,343- 'øA.F. Seybert andB. Soenarko, "Erroranalysisof spectral
estimates
with
346 (1983). applicationto the measurement of acousticparametersusingrandom
5M. G. Prasadand M. J. Crocker, "Acousticalsourcecharacterization soundfieldsin ducts," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 69, 1190-1199 ( 1981).
studies
ona multicylinder
engine
exhaust
system,"
J.SoundVib.90,479- "W. T. Chu, "Architecturalacousticmeasurements usingperiodicpseu-
490 (1983). dorandomsequences andFFT," J.'Acoust.Soc.Am. 76, 475-478 (1984).
6T.E.Vigran,"Measuring
theacoustic
properties
ofducts,"
Appl.Acoust. ':W. T. Chu,"An improved tubemethodforacoustic impedance measure-
18, 241-249 (1985). ment,"BuildingResearchNote 113,NationalResearchCouncilof Can-
7F.J. Fahy,"Rapidmethod
forthemeasurementofsample
acoustic
im- ada,Divisionof BuildingResearch(March 1977).
pedanceina standard
wavetube,"J.Sound
Vib.97,168-170(1984).

560 J.AcouSt.
Soc.Am.,Vol.80,No.2,August
1986 W.T.Chu:Transfer
function
technique
withsingle
microphone 560

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