Modelling of a city canyon problem in a turbulent atmosphere using an equivalent sources approach

Journal article, 2004

The sound propagation into a courtyard shielded from direct exposure is predicted using an equivalent sources approach. The problem is simplified into that of a two-dimensional city canyon. A set of equivalent sources are used to couple the free half-space above the canyon to the cavity inside the canyon. Atmospheric turbulence causes an increase in the expected value of the sound pressure level compared to a homogeneous case. The level increase is estimated using a von Kármán turbulence model and the mutual coherences of all equivalent sources' contributions. For low frequencies the increase is negligible, but at 1.6 kHz it reaches 2–5 dB for the geometries and turbulence parameters used here. A comparison with a ray-based model shows reasonably good agreement.