Absorption and impedance boundary conditions for phased geometrical-acoustics methods

Defining accurate acoustical boundary conditions is of crucial importance for room acoustic simulations. In predicting sound fields using phased geometrical acoustics methods, both absorption coefficients and surface impedances of the boundary surfaces can be used, but no guideline has been developed on which boundary condition produces accurate results.

In this study, various boundary conditions in terms of normal, random, and field incidence absorption coefficients and normal incidence surface impedance are used in a phased beam tracing model, and the simulated results are validated with boundary element solutions. Two rectangular rooms with uniform and non-uniform absorption distributions are tested.

Effects of the neglect of reflection phase shift are also investigated. It is concluded that the impedance, random incidence, and field incidence absorption boundary conditions produce reasonable results with some exceptions at low frequencies for acoustically soft materials.