THE MEASUREMENT OF SOUND POWER FLUX IN FLOW DUCTS

This paper describes the development of robust procedures yielding reliable estimates of the nett sound power flux associated with one-dimensional wave motion under strongly reactive conditions in flow ducts. In such reverberant situations, the measurements must be sufficiently precise to clearly identify the small fraction of the total fluctuating wave energy that is being propagated through the system [1–4]. An expansion chamber, together with its inlet and outlet pipes radiating into a semi-anechoic space, was chosen as a simple but sufficiently representative example of such systems. Various practical problems, such as those arising from low signal-to-noise ratios, or any inadequacies of microphone calibration were investigated in detail, along with various strategies for minimizing their influence on the realism and reliability of the associated measurements. The most effective procedures were identified by performing a sequence of comparisons between the resulting measurements and checking them against data generated with an existing and well-verified prediction code.