The Riverside Energy Efficiency Laboratory at Texas A&M University conducts sound quality testing for the Home Ventilating Institute. When the Home Ventilating Institute initially established their sound quality test, the semi-reverberant sound chamber to conduct the sound quality tests was built at the Riverside Energy Efficiency Laboratory. The Home Ventilating Institute created a standard to specify the procedure for sound quality testing. This standard contained high consideration for performance, reliability, and accuracy. The standard was based on several ANSI standards for sound testing procedures, sound setup and equipment standards, and sound rating calculations.
The Riverside Energy Efficiency Laboratory presently continues sound quality testing for the Home Ventilating Institute using the semi-reverberant sound chamber. The standard has been revised and updated due to developments for better sound quality test result representation. Resourceful data to assist with further developments comes from the semi-reverberant sound chamber's characteristics.
This thesis's purpose was to conduct an analysis of the performance for the semi-reverberant sound chamber. The sound chamber's sound transmission loss was determined using a fan source with known sound power across the 24 tested 1/3 octave frequency bands, 50 Hz - 10,000 Hz. The sound pressure was recorded inside the chamber and outside the chamber at the sound source. The sound source was placed at three different locations around the sound chamber. In addition, the sound pressure was measured in real time to study the amount of sound pressure fluctuation and maximum amplitude. The background noise was measured inside the sound chamber for these tests.
The sound transmission loss profiles were identical for each location. The lowest two 1/3 octave bands, 50 Hz and 63 Hz, have low transmission losses. The profile jumps up at the following 1/3 octave band and increases with a peak around 1600 Hz before slightly decreasing. The profile of the sound pressure in the time domain showed similar results. The most fluctuation with the greatest peaks was present in the lower 1/3 octave frequency bands, and diminished the higher the 1/3 octave frequency band. Sound sources around the sound chamber can be evaluated to determine whether an impact is possible on the sound quality tests from these results. The impact of modifications to the sound chamber can use the transmission loss values to help determine the expected performance increase.
