Sound field modeling in a street canyon with partially diffusely reflecting boundaries by the transport theory

Abstract

The transport theory, applied to the concept of sound particles, seems to be well adapted to predict the sound propagation in urban areas, including most complex effects, like diffuse scattering by building facades, atmospheric attenuation, scattering by urban objects in streets, etc. In this paper, the transport theory is then applied to the sound field modeling in an empty street canyon with partially diffusely building facades. In this case, the temporal and spatial distribution of sound energy in a street is the solution of a transport equation, with mixed specular-diffuse boundary conditions. Using an asymptotic approach, the transport equation may be reduced to a diffusion equation for the sound energy, where the diffusion coefficient depends only on the building facades properties. Comparisons with experiments show that the diffusion model gives consistent results with experimental data, both for the sound attenuation level and the reverberation time.