Engineering Physics

CHAPTER 13

Acoustics of Buildings and Acoustic Quieting

13.1  Introduction to acoustics of buildings

Acoustics deals with the origin, propagation and hearing of sound. Architectural acoustics deals with the design and construction of accoustically good buildings, music halls, sound recording rooms and movie theatres where the audience receive the best sound quality. In 1911, Wallace C. Sabine, professor of physics at Harvard university laid the foundations of acoustic engineering. Here, we see some definitions of sound:

1. Tone: A sound having a well-defined frequency is called tone. Suppose a fundamental tone has frequency f, then the frequencies 2f, 3t, 4f … are called overtones or harmonics.
2. Pitch: It is a physiological quantity, which produces ...