Activities
Vibration and noise mitigation in home and industrial environments, vehicle and aircraft comfort, road and rail traffic noise pollution, improvement of acoustic conditions of interiors and exteriors as well as the related techniques for experimental investigation and for sound field analysis/reconstruction are topics of increasing importance in the scientific community and with a major socio-economic impact. The PoliMi Sound and Vibration Laboratory (PSVL) is the reference research structure of Politecnico di Milano in the following areas: vibroacoustics, flow acoustics, applied acoustics, noise and vibration control, sound processing, musical acoustics, psychoacoustics, music information retrieval, architecture acoustics, acoustic measurement.
The research activity of PSVL is focused on the following applications:
- Building and environmental acoustics
- Vehicles/aircraft vibroacustic comfort and cabin noise control
- Tyre rolling noise and railway noise
- Musical acoustics and sound processing
- Noise and vibration from machinery and industrial products
- Innovative and smart materials
The PSVL Lab is based on the idea of sharing the competences and experience of the four Departments involved, so as to promote a multidisciplinary approach to research.
Location
The lab administration is located at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The experimental facilities are distributed over different lab areas, set in:
- Bovisa Campus, for the applications related to industry, transport, building and environmental acoustics;
- Cremona Musical Acoustics Lab (located in the premises of the Violin Museum), for musical acoustics, sound processing and multimedia audio.
Equipment
- Anechoic/semi anechoic chamber
- NOISE BOX (small-size reverberation chamber)
- Microphones, accelerometers and data acquisition systems for sound and vibration measurements (in lab and in field)
- Laser scanning vibrometer
- Excitation devices for vibration testing: impact hammers, electromagnetic shakers, hydraulic actuators
- Sound intensity probe
- Brüel & Kjær® Acoustic Camera for real-time noise source identification
- Static and robotic microphone arrays for sound source mapping
- Eigenmike® microphone array for sound field capture
- Automatic turntable for sound directivity measurements
- Sound level meters
- OmniPower Sound Source Brüel & Kjær® type 4292-L
- Head and Torso Simulator Brüel & Kjær® type 4128-C, for sound quality measurements
- Impedance tube kit Brüel & Kjær® type 4206, for acoustic material testing
- Active vibration control systems (real-time control board, actuators and sensors)
- Rendering room phono and vibro-insulated for timbral and acoustic measurements of musical instruments and plenacoustic rendering/acquisition of acoustic fields
- Fourth-order ambisonics rendering dome of 32 high-resolution speakers for immersive musical listening experiences
- Mobile professional-grade mixing and high-resolution spatial audio capturing system for live events
Services provided
- Noise and vibration measurements (in lab and in field)
- Experimental modal analysis
- Damping Loss Factor measurements of composite and sandwich panels
- Impedance tube measurements of normal incidence absorption coefficient and transmission loss
- Directivity and sound power measurements (in anechoic/semi anechoic chamber)
- Sound intensity measurements
- Sound field mapping through beamforming and nearfield acoustic holography (in anechoic/semi anechoic chamber or in field)
- Timbral and acoustic measurements of musical instruments
- High-quality and high-resolution spatial audio acquisitions of live events
Procedures and costs of using equipment
The use of the equipment available in the PSVL Laboratory will be subject to charges, which will vary for the Politecnico departments that are part of the Laboratory, other Politecnico departments and external users. Anyone wishing to rent the Laboratory equipment is asked to send a request to the contact specified hereafter.