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Sound fields above porous layers or rough acoustically hard boundaries may include airborne surface waves. The surface wave properties depend on the effective surface admittance. Analytical expressions for surface wave speeds are derived from models for the acoustical properties of rigid porous media. Surface wave effects on measurements of level difference spectra over porous asphalt are investigated and predictions of phase, group speeds, and vertical attenuation of the surface waves over externally reacting hard backed layers corresponding to a porous asphalt are compared. Predictions of surface wave characteristics above an identical vertical slit medium are compared with data obtained over arrays of parallel aluminum strips on an acoustically hard surface. Group speeds of surface waves over lattices, parallel regularly spaced strips, and snow obtained by numerical differentiation of the phase speed spectra corresponding to admittance spectra deduced from complex excess attenuation are found to compare well with those estimated from time domain data. An effective admittance, deduced from a boundary element method simulation of the excess attenuation spectrum over regularly spaced ribs so that the frequency of the peak corresponds with that in the measured spectrum, is used to estimate the group speed of the associated surface wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regularly spaced low walls and rectangular lattices on a hard ground have been investigated as a means for reducing noise levels from surface transport. Predictions of the insertion loss of such surfaces has involved the use of computationally intensive numerical methods such as the Boundary Element Method (BEM) or Finite difference techniques (FDTD and PSTD). By considering point-to-point propagation above regularly spaced acoustically hard grooves with rectangular cross sections, a modal model used hitherto to predict electromagnetic and ultrasonic surface waves is adapted to derive an effective impedance for such a grooved surface. When this effective impedance is used in the classical theory for propagation from a point source above an impedance plane, the modal model enables predictions of excess attenuation spectra that compare closely with those obtained by numerical methods but take a fraction of the time. Also the modal method is extended to predict excess attenuation spectra above phase gradient metasurfaces with porous material in each constituent groove. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A modal model for diffraction by a contiguous array of rectangular grooves in an acoustically-hard plane is extended to predict the free space acoustic field from a point source above such a structure. Subsequently, an approximate effective impedance model for grooved surfaces is presented. Measurements have shown that these ground surfaces can be used for outdoor noise reduction but accurate modelling has required the use of computationally expensive numerical methods. The extended modal model and approximate impedance model inspired by it yield equivalent results in a fraction of the time taken by the boundary element method, for example, and could be used when designing grooved surfaces to reduce noise from road traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]