Comparisons in the Design and Implementation of Multi-Microphone Acoustic Probes

Utah State University

Many designs exist for multi-microphones probes used to estimate acoustic active intensity and acoustic energy density. Of these, four microphone cubic designs have found wide use. However, there exist 12 ways to use cubic probes to estimate energy density and 16 ways to estimate intensity. This comparative study is a computational investigation of the errors associated with each design. The frequency range of 0 to 1.4 ka is considered. Results are given for only plane wave fields and all angles of incidence are examined. Depending on which quantity is to be estimated (i.e. intensity magnitude, intensity direction, or energy density), a different design is found to perform best. However, the best designs are shown to outperform the other designs by only small amounts.