London School of Economics Project Completed

The Acoustics Group is happy to announce that Szabolc Vagvolgyi, was conferred with a 1st class degree from the London School of Economics in December 2013.  His thesis, "Residents' willingness to pay for aircraft noise reduction - the case for London City Airport" formed part of his degree in Environmental Policy. Dr Dance suggested the idea of implementing a scheme where runways could be built and the residents paid in shares based on the noise exceeding the statutory noise contours. Let's see what happens!

Student from Polytechnic of Turin Graduates

On the 20th December 2013 visiting Masters' student Elena Vercellone successfully defended her thesis, "Teachers' vocal effort in different acoustic environments". Elena was the second visiting academic to graduate from the Polytechnic of Turin. We all wish her well in her architectural career!

Luis visits Mumbai University

For Christmas 2013 Dr Gomez-Agustina visited ex Masters student Rolins Roy in Mumbai. Luis was invited to give a lecture to 100 students of Mumbai College of Architecture on acoustics, in particular on the work of the Acoustics Group, hence, the outfit!

Summary of 2013

Thanks for all your support over 2013. We won four key awards: Dr Luis Gomez was the recipient of the Institute of Acoustics Peter Barnett Award, Dr Stephen Dance and the Acoustics Group received the  LSBU Enterprise team award, Dr Bob Peters received the Institute of Acoustics R W B Stephens Medal, and two of our MSc students were awarded Acoustical Society of America Newman medals: Shane Sugrue and Rob Burrell. Peter Mapp submitted and successfully defended his doctoral thesis. International links were furthered with the Politecnico of Turin and Federal University of Minas Gerais. Links with the Institute of Acoustics were also furthered with LSBU hosting a meeting on the Principles of Uncertainty, Dr Gomez gave an evening seminar as did two of the  MSc students. After a break of 17 years the Institute of Acoustics Diploma was reinitiated with 17 new students now in attendance.  Four papers were published in the Journal of Sound and Vibration, Applied Acoustics and the Journal of Building Acoustics and presentations given at the following conferences: Birmingham, Manchester, London, Southampton, Bangkok, Montreal, and Innsbruck. A new three year research project commenced with Baykam of Turkey. Significant investment was gratefully received for the refurbishment of the reverberation chamber, and cutting edge instrumentation: an impedance gun, a standing wave tube and four XL2 meters. For the Research Exercise Framework the Acoustics Group contributed two of the five engineering case studies. We look forward to 2014 in particular Melbourne for Inter-noise 2014 and the Musical Acoustics seminar at the Royal Academy of Music, but especially to two visiting PhD students from South America. Best wishes for the New Year

New Microflown Impedance Gun

On the 16th December 2013 the new Microflown In-situ Impedance Gun arrived from Campbell Associates. The first of 2014 will be to test the device on a range of Anne Kyyro Quinn's textile panels, compare the absorption results against those of the new BSWA impedance tube and the reverberation chamber measurements.

Musical Group's Summer Conference 2014

On the 4th July 2014 the Royal Academy of Music has agreed to host the 2nd Institute of Acoustics Musical Acoustics Group conference. Our PhD students should put their thinking caps on, as the programme has yet to be arranged!

Acoustics Group Students Christmas Party

On the 12th December 2013 the postgraduate acoustics students had their final lecture of the year. To celebrate this the IOA Diploma and MSc students decided to have a Christmas celebratory drink to end the year on a happy note. Well done all.

Acoustics Group Winter Party

It's that time of year for the lecturers, guest speakers and PhD students winter gathering. This year we had an Italian Christmas. Special thanks go to Bridget, Salih, Peter, Nick and Ken for coming along and being so helpful over the entirety of 2013. All good fun!

Sound screener calibrated for Harvard Medical School

On the 29th November 2013 the tablet based self assessment automated health screener was calibrated at the Acoustics laboratory. The Sound Screener was developed by Audio3 for use by the Royal College of Music lead AHRC funded Musical Impact project. The screener will be used by Harvard Medical School to inform the public workers of the dangers of excessive noise exposure.

LMS DSP Course

On the 2nd and 3rd December 2013, Dr Luis Gomez attended LMS International (Siemens) seminar series. The course was entitled, "DSP for noise and vibration engineering". It is hoped that next year LMS will come down n to LSBU to give a one day course as a Master Class!

London's only Heliport

On the 25th November 2013, Dr Stephen Dance was seconded on to Wandsworth London Heliport Consultative Committee. The Battersea Heliport is the only landing pad in London. It is in an area of rapid development being both close to the proposed US Embassy and the Battersea Power Station development. New monitoring and prediction solutions will be used to assess the changing noise map of SW London.

Associate to pesent at IOA London Branch

Acoustic Group Associate Dr Brad Backus will give a presentation to the London Branch of the Institute of Acoustics on 19th February 2014. WSP will host the event on Chancery Lane. Brad will be talking on his work with Neurelec on cochlear implants. Looking forward to a most lively event!

Lorenzo presents at Reproduced Sound

 

PhD Candidate Lorenzo Morales presented his paper at Reproduced Sound in Salford last week, 13th November 2013. His paper was co-authored by Glenn Leembruggen who was also present at the annual electro-acoustics conference. The paper was well received with many follow up questions!

A Visit to London Underground

On the 20th November Dr Luis Gomez organised a visit to London Underground to discuss his research results with the PA/VA sound system design team. In the near future we are predicting many opportunities for collaboration.

Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina wins IOA award

On the 13th November 2013 Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina was awarded the Institute of Acoustics Peter Barnett Memorial medal. Luis then gave a lecture on, " The improvement of vocal alarm systems in Underground stations". Discussions were then hold over the conference dinner!

Visit to BBC Salford

On the 12th November 2013 the Institute of Acoustics arranged a tour of BBC Salford for the Reproduced Sound conference. An excellent time was had looking at the TV studios, the Radio studios and interacting with he demonstrations given by the BBC R&D teams. I had to leave early, but the Acoustics Group were well represented.

Introducing the Audio3 Soundscreener

On the 4th November 2013 Dr Bradford Backus of Audio3 bought in his new Soundscreener for testing at London South Bank University. The test yourself hearing system will be introduced at the Royal College of Music next term and Harvard Medical School during 2014. The device will allow, for the first time, automated public health screening in any quiet environment. But first, the testing system must be tested!

Elton John's new organ

On the 22nd October 2013, the Royal Academy of Music installed and commissioned their new organ. Now we can measure the sound exposure of organists!

Dr Christos Nestoras visits

On the 17th October 2013, Dr Christos Nestoras visited the Acoustics Group from the University of Thessaloniki. From discussions a paper will be published based upon low level noise measurements. Then we celebrated with Saffron tea.

Discussions with the London Symphony Orchestra

On the 9th October Dr Stephen Dance and PhD student Georgia Zepidou were invited to the Barbican by the London Symphony Orchestra. Discussions were held with the noise team to develop a suite of mitigation measures. We are predicting significant collaboration with a lot of potential student projects!

Resonators under testing for Ramboll

Tuned resonators are being tested in the new reverberation chamber for Ramboll to determine their effective frequency range for use in the refurbished Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. MSc student Christina Higgins is leading the work under the supervision of Dr Luis Gomez.

Reverberation Chamber Refurbished

On the 1st October 2013 the refurbishment of the Acoustics Group's reverberation chamber was completed. The 200m3 chamber is current being commissioned, but is back in action!

Abstracts for Reproduced Sound Submitted

The programme for the Institute of Acoustics Reproduced Sound conference is now available. The conference will be held in Manchester and will last 3 days during which Dr Luis Gomez will give his Peter Barnett Award lecture, entitled "Electro-acoustic design og voice alarm systems for underground stations", plus Lornezo Morales will give a paper entitled, "The importance of the speech spectrum on the STI calculations".  All wrapped round with a visit to MediaCity!

First Joint Masters Student Graduates

On the 26th September 2013 our first joint Masters student, Daniela Falzone, graduated from Politecnico di Torino. Daniela's thesis was entitled, "Influence of acoustics on vocal performance of lyric singers". The thesis was scored 104/110. So you can give 110% in Italy!

New Acoustics Students for 2013/14

On the 26th September 2013 the new recruits on the MSc and IOA Diploma course were welcomed to London South Bank University. Great to see so many happy faces!!

Visualising Sound at the Royal Academy of Music

Over the summer the Acoustics Group's long staying links with the Royal Academy of Music were put to good use with the help of Campbell Associates. A full orchestra rehearsal was used to  visualise music as performed in the Dukes Hall. The Norsonic acoustic camera was used to demonstrate how each instrument during the performance could be individually heard!

Acoustics Group at Internoise Innsbruck

The Acoustics Group were in Austria this week with Professor Bridget Shield and Nick Durup both presenting papers. The Internoise 2013 conference was held in the capital of the Tyrol region and included a wide range of acoustic topics.

Audiometry for the Royal Academy of Music

For the 7th year, the Acoustics Group is undertaking health surveillance for the Royal Academy of Music. The audiometric screening of 320 students should take most of September. Above you see Doc's Proplugs being modelled, useful for a night out in London!

Seminars to the Royal Academy of Music

On the 11th and 12th September 2013 Dr Stephen Dance gave his 7th annual series of seminars to the students of the Royal Academy of Music. The series was entitled, "Musicians hearing and the sound of performance". Lots of Q&A and interest in future developments!

Lecture at ISVR on Architectural Acoustics

On the 13th September 2013 for the 20th year Dr Stephen Dance gave his annual lecture at ISVR, Southampton University. The participates of the Advanced Course Course on Noise Control listened to a presentation on Sound Propagation in Non-diffuse Enclosures.

Applied Acoustics Paper Published

On the 29th August 2013, the scientific journal Applied Acoustics accepted for publication a paper by Dr Gomez-Agustina without corrections. The paper is entitled, "The effects of air temperature and humidity on the acoustic design of voice alarm systems on underground stations". Congratulations Luis, good work !! Luis will be presenting some of the results at his Peter Barnett student award paper presentation at the Institute of Acoustics Reproduced Sound conference in November

Journal of Building Acoustics paper published

On the 28th August 2013, the Journal of Building Acoustics published a paper by Dr Nestoras and Dr Dance. The paper is entitled, "The interrelationship between room acoustics parameters as measured in University classrooms using four source configurations". The research was undertaken as part of Christos's doctoral work. Well done Dr Nestoras!

Testing the Queen Elizabeth Hall's Helmholtz resonators

The specially designed Helmholtz resonators in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the South Bank have been recreated in the workshops of London South Bank University. The absorption characteristics of four of these resonators have been measured in the acoustic laboratory using the latest NTI XL2 FFT meter. This has established the practical performance of the resonators, which will be compared to the theoretical model.

JSV Paper published

On the 27th August 2013 the Journal of Sound and Vibration published the latest paper by the Acoustics Group. The paper entitled, "Effects of damping on the low-frequency acoustics of listening rooms based on an analytical model", it was written by Dr Stephen Dance and MSc student Mr Gil van Buuren based on his Masters dissertation. The paper indicates that the statistical cut-off frequency as derived by Schroeder is too low.

A hearing aid for the Third World

Q-ear, a charity specialising in devices for the Third World have produced a range of plastic ear enhancers.
The Acoustic Group have tested the speech intelligibility performance improvement from attaching these colourful devices to a Head and Torso systems .

Audio3 SoundBadge

On the 22nd August 2013, the first finalised SoundBadge was shipped to the Acoustics Group. Audio3 have done a fantastic job of producing a dosimeter which also is a class 2 sound level meter! The pilot study to field test the device will involve the British Youth Opera in late August

50th Anniversary Celebrations

This summer the Acoustics Group helped the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research celebrate their 50th anniversary. We have had close links with ISVR developed over the past 20 years. It was great to see old friends and make new ones!

Visiting Ghent University

This summer the Acoustics Group fulfilled a long standing invitation to visit Ghent University to discuss advances in measurement instrumentation. Professor Dick Botteldooren and Dr Annelies Bockstael hosted the informal meeting where the new inexpensive Internet enabled monitoring system was demonstrated.

The Acoustics Group at ICSV Congress

The 20th International Congress on Sound and Vibration was held in Bangkok, Thailand. Research Fellow Cat Marques presented her paper on, "Noise reduction in commercial refrigerators - A practical approach". Then had a fantastic time visiting Thailand.

Acoustics at the London Graduate Recruitment Fair

On the 19-20th June 2013 at the Business Design Centre in London the Association of Noise Consultants attended an exhibition at the London Graduate Recruitment Fair http://summer.londongradfair.co.uk/visitor-information.aspx. The fair stand was manned by MSc students Christina Higgins and Graham Shaw of Adnitt Acoustics and LSBU Research Fellow Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina on Thursday. Excellent turnout and promotion for the new IOA Diploma!

The Reverberation Chamber is Refurbished

Over the summer of 2013, the Acoustics Laboratory is undergoing refurbishment, in particular the reverberation chamber. Volume diffusers will be added on completion of the work in July 2013.

Luis presents at the IOA London Branch

On the 19th June 2013 Dr Luis Gomez presented to the Institute of Acoustics London branch at the offices of WSP. Luis research was entitled, "Designing voice alarm systems for underground stations". The meeting was well attended with some difficult questions answered regarding the ambitious plan of raising the speech intelligibility criteria!

Steve presents at the ICA

On the 3rd June 2013, Dr Stephen Dance presented Masters student Paul Herwin's dissertation to the International Congress on Acoustics, Montreal. Paul's paper was entitled, "Straw Bale Sound Insulation - Blowing away the chaff". The Americans from the Southern States were interested in this construction method.

PhD student Ben Dymock presents at the ICA

On the 5th June 2013 PhD student Ben Dymock presented his research at the International Congress on Acoustics in Montreal. Ben presented his work on, " Urban Wind Turbines - A Case Study" in the wind farm session. Much to his relief there were no difficult questions!

Peter Mapp submits his thesis

On the 12th June 2013 Peter Mapp submitted his doctoral thesis entitled, "The Application of STI to Public Address and Assistive Learning Systems". The viva should be interesting!

Acoustic Camera at the Royal Academy of Music

On the 12th June 2013 Campbell Associates bought their acoustic camera to the Royal Academy of Music. The camera was arranged on the balcony whilst the orchestra rehearsed Strauss. The video is really interested demonstration of what is possible in room acoustics!

A Visit to ETS Quebec University

On the 7th June 2013 Professor Jeremie Voix of ETS Quebec University invited an international delegation to his acoustics and hearing laboratory. We really enjoyed the demonstrations of the Auditory Research Platform and the excellent coffee!

Steve Dance judges the Wenger Student Poster Competition

On the 6th June 2013, Dr Stephen Dance was one of the Newman Trusts Wenger judges for the student poster competition. The Acoustical Society of America sponsored event was won by Chalmers University with RPI placed. All 16 posters were of a high quality and deserve to be recognized by the quality of the acoustical design. Well done everyone who entered!

PhD student Nick Durup presents at ICA 2013

On the 6th June 2013 PhD student Nick Durup presented his pilot study on the vocal stress of teachers and the effects of the acoustic environment. The paper was presented a the ICA in the acoustics of schools session. Nick had to think on his feet during his presentation!

International Congress on Acoustics 2013

The 165th Acoustical Society of America held a joint conference with the Canadian Acoustical Association and the International Congress on Acoustics. The conference lasted all week and was held in Montreal. The Acoustics Group was represented by Steve Dance, Nick Durup and Ben Dymock. The conference ended appropriately with the Canadian F1 Grand Prix.