The Spectrum of Coloured Noise: Beyond White and Pink – Applications and Historical Context

Introduction The auditory world around us is filled with various types of noise, and while some are simply distracting or annoying, others serve practical purposes. You're probably familiar with the…

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On The Shoulders of Giants – Joseph Fourier: The Mathematical Maestro of Vibration and Acoustics

The following post on Joseph Fourier is our second in the On The Shoulders of Giants series. It is hard to overstate Joseph Fourier's importance in the field of sound…

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What engineering decisions are made by measuring a power spectrum?

By power spectrum we are talking about an ASD (Auto Spectral Density) or PSD (Power Spectral Density). In fact PSD is often used when really ASD would be more correct.

Taking any signal and performing a frequency analysis using an ASD or a PSD will give the energy over a range of frequencies. (more…)

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What is Synchronous (Angular) Sampling?

The term synchronous data is usually applied to vibration or acoustic data that is captured from an item of rotating equipment at regularly spaced angle intervals as distinct from regularly spaced time intervals. The rotating part could be an engine, a gear wheel, a drive shaft, a turbine rotor, a propeller, a turbocharger or any other type of rotary mechanical device. Typically these items are subjected to out-of-balance forces that cause them to vibrate at frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental (once per revolution) rotation speed frequency. (more…)

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5 Unusual & Interesting Acoustic Webpages

Many of our readers spend their days studying or solving noise problems. In our day-to-day work it’s often easy to forget some of the more unusual applications and miss out on the more interesting side of acoustics. So we have gathered together 5 examples of unusual or interesting acoustic work. If you know of any other out of the ordinary acoustic applications or websites then please leave a comment in the box at the end of this post. (more…)

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