Sound propagation between two adjacent rectangular workstations in an open-plan office—part I: mathematical modeling

This paper describes the development of a mathematical model of sound propagation between adjacent workstations in an open-plan office. The model is valid for adjacent rectangular workstations consisting of small enclosures made up of partial-height screens or panels. The new model adds the effects of side and back panels to the primary effect of the common separating screen that was considered in a previous model. In both models, reflections are included using an image source technique and expressions are developed to identify those image sources that represent actual reflection paths. The orientation of openings into the workstations is also considered. Comparisons with measured attenuations of sound propagation between adjacent workstations are included. They verify that the model can quite accurately predict the expected speech privacy between workstations in an open-plan office.