An acoustic vector based approach to locate low frequency noise sources in 3D

Although low frequency noise is an issue of huge societal importance, traditional acoustic testing methods have limitations in finding the low frequency source. It is hard to determine the direction of the noise using traditional microphones. Three dimensional sound probes capturing the particle velocity vector and sound pressure, offer a novel possibility to locate the low frequency noise sources in 3D. An overview on the benefits of acoustic vector sensors will be given and a low frequency case study will be presented and discussed. The method has been tested during low frequency noise measurements in an urban environment. In this case a very specific frequency of the source was known. This frequency was used to tune the measurement system. The paper will describe the results of the test