Engineering Acoustics

Preface

Over the past decades, the authors of this book have been working together in several areas of acoustics and vibration, which has led to a number of joint research papers published in scholarly journals and congress proceedings, as well as book chapters. Our goal in writing this book was first to cover the fundamental theory relevant to engineering acoustics, noise, and vibration, and second to describe practical ways in which noise and vibration can be controlled and reduced. Each of the sixteen chapters has several worked examples designed to make the theoretical and empirical prediction methods accessible for readers. This book is aimed at senior undergraduates, graduate students, and practitioners in the noise and vibration fields. Although the use of SI units is emphasized in the book, English units are given in addition in some cases, in particular in Chapter 13, for the convenience of readers in the USA.

The book begins with fundamentals (Chapters 1–3) and continues with human aspects – hearing, speech, and the effects of noise and vibration on people (Chapters 4–6). At this point, two chapters are included on noise measurement (Chapters 7 and 8). Chapter 9 deals with principles of noise and vibration control. The remaining Chapters 10–16 deal with specific practical problems. These chapters include: acoustical design of reactive and passive mufflers and silencers (Chapter 10), control of noise and vibration of machines (Chapter 11), noise and vibration control ...