The use of large cylindrical enclosures as a cost effective approach to reverberant acoustic testing
The feasibility of using existing cylindrical enclosures as cost effective substitutes for reverberant acoustic test chambers is investigated. In particular the performance of two large cylindrical environmental chambers, 1400 and 14,000 cu m in volume, is evaluated in detail. Reverberant acoustic chamber characteristics are predicted using classical acoustic theory and are compared to results obtained from actual chamber measurements. A method of scaling low level test results to predict the performance of a particular driver/horn/chamber configuration is also discussed. This prediction technique is confirmed by actual test data using a 200 kilowatt acoustic generator.