Atmospheric effects on sound waves propagation

Abstract EN

This paper describes the theoretical bases for calculating the atmospheric attenuation of sound waves.

These theoretical aspects were modeled using Matlab Programing Language.

Calculations were made for different atmospheric conditions and for different frequencies of sound waves.

The results showed that the attenuation coefficients of sound waves are strongly dependent on frequency and relative humidity.

The attenuation increases with increasing frequency.

The results also showed that the attenuation increases rapidly with increasing the relative humidity, reaching a peak when the relative humidity is between 20 and 30 % and the occurrence of this peak at certain value of relative humidity depends on the frequency.

The effect of the relative humidity and atmospheric temperature on the speed of sound was also considered.

It was found that the speed of sound increase with increasing relative humidity.

Increasing temperature would make this tendency stronger.