Using transient and steady-state SEA to assess potential errors in the measurement of structure-borne sound power input from machinery on coupled reception plates

Isolated reception plates provide an engineering approach to quantify the structure-borne sound power input from machinery through the measurement of the spatial-average velocity level and structural reverberation times. For applications in building acoustics there are practical and economic reasons to consider using coupled reception plates formed by solid heavyweight walls or floors that are structurally coupled to other building elements. This paper uses transient and steady-state statistical energy analysis to investigate how the errors depend upon the building structure to which the coupled reception plate is connected. It is shown that the problem is twofold. Firstly, in the low- and mid-frequency ranges, the steady-state velocity level on the coupled reception plate is increased by energy returning from other coupled plates. Secondly, the structural decays on the coupled reception plate have significant curvature due to returning energy; hence short evaluation ranges are needed to minimise the error when determining the total loss factor. This leads to a problematic situation where the coupled reception plate appears to give the correct answer due to the error in the energy cancelling out the error in the total loss factor. The latter error can be minimised using short evaluation ranges for the structural reverberation time.