Transfer Path Analysis methods applied to diagnostic testing of sound insulation performance of cavity constructions.

Transfer Path Analysis methods are one of the most widely used techniques for diagnostic testing of structural and airborne sound transmission. Although widely used in the automotive sector, these methods however have not been adopted in the Building Acoustics domain and the paper intends to explore their usability in this context. Commonly used Inverse techniques such as Panel Contribution Analysis methods require extensive measurements usually involving reciprocal transfer functions and could be time consuming when the radiating structures/panels can be complex and large in size such as building elements. The presented work deals with defining an alternative method for predicting the receiving side pressure by using frequency response functions of the path and receivers and operational measurements. This removes the need for volume velocity sources and reciprocal measurement of frequency response functions. The accuracy of this method is dependent on the spacing of measurement points with respect to incident wavelength. Results are presented for the sound transmission through a cavity-backed plate. Other potential applications of the method include finding the pressure distribution, incident power on a panel or building elements, etc.