Prediction of Acoustic Response using Ray Tracing in the Presence of Complex Shaped Obstacles

The Ray Tracing technique is one of the most effective methods for prediction of the frequency or time-domain response. Its application is often limited to the estimation of the acoustic propagation in three-dimensional space delimited by flat reflecting surfaces. This technique fails eventually to correctly estimate the sound propagation in three-dimensional space delimited by either convex or concave obstacles of arbitrary shape. This paper presents a technique to predict the frequency response function and speech transmission indices in the presence of complex reflecting obstacles. Moreover, an application of the ray tracing technique to estimate the acoustic source pressure on reflecting surfaces that is used as an input for statistical energy analysis (SEA) is presented. The validity of the presented algorithm is evaluated by comparison versus experimental and numerical results.