Room acoustics concerns the design and evaluation of spaces by investigating its room acoustical parameters, like reverberation time and musical clarity. Building acoustics is concerned with protecting people from noise coming from adjacent spaces or outside, like traffic noise and music. Fundamental research is carried out by Level Acoustics & Vibration in collaboration with the chair Building Acoustics at the TU/e on both subjects. Research focuses on acquiring a better understanding of the subject itself and on optimizing evaluation methods.
Some examples of our research topics in this area are described below. For a full list of research projects as conducted by the Building Acoustics chair of the TU/e visit their website.
Healthy environments
As we spend 90% of our time indoors, understanding health effects that can be related to acoustics are of high importance. In our research, particular interest is dedicated to sensitive environments like health care institutes and office spaces. In these environments speech intelligibility is investigated using both computational and experimental methods.
Concert hall and theatre acoustics
Performance spaces like concert halls and theatres are acoustically challenging spaces. Research at the Laboratorium voor Akoestiek aims for the development of new tools and methods to objectively evaluate these halls. In particular, the acoustics on stage and the noise exposure of orchestral musicians is investigated.
Service equipment in lightweight buildings
More and more buildings are being constructed with lightweight building materials. This poses challenges in terms of sound insulation and vibrations. Level Acoustics & Vibration is involved in the research program Acoutect. We focus on the development of vibro-acoustic insulation solutions of service equipment at lightweight building elements. Learn more about this project on the website for Acoutect.
Ancient Acoustics
Greek amphitheaters are famous for their great acoustics. Speech intelligibility is widely assumed to be high for all seats in the theater. A measuring expedition was organised in Greece to investigate if this is correct. For more informatie visit the website of Ancient Acoustics.
Experimental methods
Advanced acoustic measurement techniques that aim to improve the reliability and accuracy of measurement results are developed at the Laboratorium voor Akoestiek. Important applications are the measurement of room acoustic parameters in accordance with ISO 3382 of working environments and performance spaces and the measurement of (very high) sound insulation using impulse responses. Also, scale model measurement techniques are developed.
Computational methods
Computational methods are developed at Laboratorium voor Akoestiek for indoor environments that in particular aim to include all wave effects (through wave-based modelling methods) and allow for auralization.
