Parametric analysis support for architectural room acoustics education

Abstract

This paper describes ESTARA - Educational Simulation Tool for Architectural Room Acoustics, a new tool under development at Balikesir University. The system is intended for use as an educational tool to introduce basic concepts in room acoustics. It will provide capabilities for comparing various calculation methods and sound propagation paradigms. The graphical user interface will support parametric studies to communicate the impact of various design decisions on performance indicators. ESTARA utilizes the IFC platform to receive design input from any CAD system able to export ifcXML files. After importing the base case, parametric studies can be set-up in order to explore how the change in any user selected property (continuous, discrete, or enumerated) effects acoustic performance criteria such as reverberation time and point responses. Once boundary values and intermediate steps are determined by users, ESTARA automatically runs a batch of simulations and visualizes results. The multiple simulations executed, has necessitated the adoption of a simulation engine with control over the tradeoff between speed and accuracy. Further development can lead to tools that assist in mapping out performance spaces and locating configurations which meet targeted performance requirements.