A novel technique for measuring the reflection coefficient of sound absorbing materials

A new method to measure the acoustic behaviour of sound absorbing material in an impedance tube is presented. The method makes use of a novel particle velocity sensor, the microflown, and a microphone. The so-called p·u method is compared to three other methods of which the two microphone technique is well known. It is shown that the combination of a microphone and a microflown provides direct information on the acoustic impedance, the sound intensity and the sound energy density. The experimental results are compared to the results obtained with the conventional impedance tube measurements. To be able to repeat the measurements in a reliable way a well described test sample with a quarter-wave resonator is used. Furthermore it is shown that the viscothermal effects on the wave propagation are important, i.e. for the quarter-wave resonator and to a lesser extent for the impedance tube itself.