Theoretical and experimental analysis of noise source identification and sound intensity in box-shaped structures

For underwater vehicles, it is expected to pinpoint the location of the sources and strip out the critical noise level from a mixed noise data for the purpose of noise reduction. This article presents beamforming technique of noise source identification and sound intensity estimation of two box-shaped sources theoretically and experimentally. Considering the number of the microphones and the best acoustic performances, a spiral array is designed. To imitate the practical device, sound-making equipment is packaged in two box-shaped enclosures. The simulative and experimental results demonstrate that the error of a single line spectrum between the real sound level and the estimation is within 2 dB, there are multiple sound sources on the box-shaped sources, and the experimental error of a broadband spectrum is within 2.5 dB. It is proved that the proposed approach for noise identification and quantification has high precision and can be utilized in practical engineering.