Sound power level of speaking people

Abstract

In restaurants and cafés many sound sources are present: music, refrigerant and cooling equipment and people speaking. The smoking prohibition law (in force in Italy since 2005 for instance) did move out people, creating a lot of aggregation areas outdoor, both in summer and in winter time. As a matter of facts many cafés open on the outer part a stallage in order to provide beverages to outside costumers. In this way, the "people speaking" source became a common problem for the neighborhood to deal with and solve. In order to characterize this particular sound source in terms of sound power level of a typical stallage situation full of speaking people, sound pressure power measurements according to ISO 3746 standard [1] were carried out. The results confirm the first investigation achievements provided by Sepulcri et all [2] with a non-direct method. © 2013 Acoustical Society of America.