What Is Acoustic Analysis Software?
Acoustic Analysis Software is software that supports the understanding of acoustic phenomena by analyzing the basic characteristics of sound, such as sound propagation, reflection, absorption, and interference, and by visualizing the properties of sound that are invisible to the eye.
In particular, acoustic analysis using the finite element method, like structural analysis, enables analysis in the early design stage and early feedback to the design, preventing design rework due to acoustic defects.
There are other analysis methods called the difference method and the boundary element method.
Uses of Acoustic Analysis Software
Analysis related to sound is becoming more and more important, such as analyzing the noise level of railroad cars, the radiated sound of automobile engines, and muffler noise.
In terms of noise suppression, it is necessary to analyze how much sound can be shielded and absorbed by soundproofing structures and sound-absorbing materials.
In addition, for the purpose of evaluating sound spread and acoustic performance, there are many applications related to sound, for example, acoustic characteristics of car audio equipment, investigation of sound quality in large spaces such as concert halls, and cases where handling up to high frequencies is required.
In recent years, Acoustic Analysis Software that goes one step further than the usual Acoustic Analysis of the human voice, such as reading emotions or quantitatively evaluating the quality of a meeting, has also been introduced.
Principles of Acoustic Analysis Software
The principle of analysis is based on the wave equation. Especially in the analysis where the spread of sound in space is important, it is necessary to solve the 3-dimensional wave equation, but in many cases, it is not easy to solve it, so a solver that models the analysis space discretely is usually used.
The frequency of sound that can be heard by the human ear is in the range of 20Hz to 20,000Hz, but lower frequency sounds tend to be harder to hear, which is called the human hearing characteristic. During acceleration or noise from jet aircraft, a correction factor is applied to correct the signal level (dB) for the frequency of the noise according to this auditory characteristic, and analysis is performed according to how people perceive sound on site.
In the finite element analysis, the way the mesh is set up (the size of each element in the analysis) is very important, and since the wavelength λ is inversely proportional to the frequency f, the wavelength or mesh size must be set to take the frequency of the acoustic analysis into consideration.
In the infinite boundary element method, the size of the mesh (the size of the elements) must be less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the analysis frequency due to the limitations of the analysis algorithm.