Development of a pressure based room acoustic model using impedance descriptions of surfaces

If a simulation tool is to be used for the optimization of absorbent ceilings, it is important that the simulation tool includes a good description of the surface. This study therefore aims at developing a model which can describe surfaces by their impedance values and not just by their statistical absorption coefficient, thus retaining the phase and the angle dependence. The approach of the proposed model will be to calculate the pressure impulse response using a combination of the image source method and acoustic radiosity. The image source method will account for the specular reflections and acoustic radiosity will account for the diffuse reflections. This paper presents the motivation for the new model in the form of results in literature, which show the importance of retaining the angle dependence and phase information in reflections along with simple examples of angle dependent reflection from a porous absorber.