The Significance of Sound Diffraction Effects in Simulating Acoustics in Ancient Theatres

Economou, Panos; Charalampous, Panagiotis

doi:10.3813/aaa.918587

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To a lesser extent, use is made of scale simulations which are used to investigate and assess the acoustic properties of building materials, as well as additional acoustic phenomena in ancient theatres, such as diffraction [28,29]. In connection with this, correlations are drawn between various functional parts of ancient Roman theatres (e.g., the wall of the skene, the perimetric passageway around the amphitheatre, the slope of the cavea, the addition of scenery or an ancillary microphone installation) [30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of the Stage Design to the Acoustics of Ancient Greek Theatres

Barkas

2019

Acoustics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The famous acoustics of ancient Greek theatres rely on a successful combination of appropriate location and architectural design. The theatres of the ancient world effectively combine two contradictory requirements: large audience capacity and excellent aural and visual comfort. Despite serious alterations resulting from either Roman modifications or accumulated damage, most of these theatres are still theatrically and acoustically functional. Acoustic research has proven that ancient theatres are applications of a successful combination of the basic parameters governing the acoustic design of open-air venues: elimination of external noise, harmonious arrangement of the audience around the performing space, geometric functions among the various parts of the theatre, reinforcement of the direct sound through positive sound reflections, and suppression of the delayed sound reflections or reverberation. Specifically, regarding the acoustic contribution of the stage building, it is important to clarify the consecutive modifications of the skene in the various types of theatres, given the fact that stage buildings were almost destroyed in most ancient Greek theatres. This paper attempts to demonstrate the positive role of the scenery in contemporary performances of ancient drama to improve the acoustic comfort using data from a sample of twenty (20) ancient theatres in Greece.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of the Stage Design to the Acoustics of Ancient Greek Theatres

Barkas

2019

Acoustics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The Epidaurus theatre, originally constructed in the 4th century BC, with the upper seating area ("koilon") added in the 2nd century BC, provides a long-standing benchmark for examining how theoretical concepts and computational models correspond to measured results and listener experiences. This is because of its age-long renowned acoustics, its wellpreserved state with absence of later Roman-era modifications, its evolutional Hellenistic-era design, the low levels of environmental noise, the well-documented database of measurements and its contemporary utilization for ancient drama performances [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of ancient theatre acoustics and specifically for the Epidaurus theatre, recently available computational tools for simulation of diffraction effects [24,34,[39][40][41] have been applied for improved understanding of the sound field generated within such spaces. This sound field, beyond the direct and distinct specular reflection paths [32,36,42], consists also of diffracted sounds from those paths, generated sequentially from the edges of the tiers along the slope of the seating rows ("cavea" or "koilon") [22,24,33]. As is known [43][44][45][46][47][48][49], the propagation of edge diffracted waves strongly depends on the geometry of the field, the relative angles of the propagated path, the shape of the edge of the rigid object and the receiver position.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Farnetali et al studied open theatre reflectiondiffraction effects with measurements both in-situ and in scale models [25]. Additional effects from the ground floor and koilon, tier steps specular reflections and edge diffraction was also studied in [33,52] whilst the significance of modelling diffraction paths in simulations of ancient theatre acoustics was demonstrated by Economou and Charalampous [24], Kaleris et al [33] examined diffraction effects via a wave propagation approach on a detailed 2D section of the theatre profile following precise calibration of the simulation parameters to fit measured impulse responses. This approach, adopted also in this work, provides a controlled platform to detect and categorise the most important sound propagation mechanisms produced by specular reflections, edge diffraction and their higher order combinations, along with the direction of arrival to the receiver, considered here as either ascending or descending.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Time-frequency diffraction acoustic modeling of the Epidaurus ancient theatre

Kaleris,

Moiragias,

Hatziantoniou

et al. 2023

Acta Acust.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This work provides an in-depth investigation on the effect of sound diffraction in the acoustics of the ancient theatres, with reference to the theatre of Epidaurus. It is increasingly evident that in such theaters, sound diffraction at the edges of the multiple tiers generates significant source signal amplification. Especially for the distant listener positions, an accumulation (“avalanche”) effect from lower tier diffracted energy is identified. This study examines a 3D model of an elementary slice of the seating benches (“koilon”), evaluating the generated sound field in the time, frequency, and spatial domains. The analysis accounts for direct, reflected, diffracted and mixed reflected – diffracted paths and the theatre’s acoustic response is numerically evaluated in various positions along the koilon slice, accurately matching to in-situ measurements. The contribution of the diffracted sound to the total sound field is identified through a detailed and novel analysis of energy-based acoustic parameters, via the time and frequency responses as well as of the spatial parameters relating to listener-perceived effects. In all cases, the contribution of sound diffraction components is examined via its contribution to speech intelligibility from signals generated in the theatre’s orchestra and from a virtual reconstruction of the stage-scenic building.

show abstract

“…The uniform scattering distribution was considered more suitable for the cavea which is made of steps that can be reassembled as periodic triangular section [39][40][41], as shown in Figure 3a. In CATT-Acoustic, the diffraction after 1st order option was deactivated, even though it is usually suggested for ancient theatres [42], in order to take into account the current large amount of damage to the cavea steps in SR. In this way, it was possible to avoid the typical "chirp" echo due to diffraction phenomenon which has been attested to come from the regular stone steps in ancient theatres in empty conditions [43].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Accuracy of Predicted Acoustical Parameters in Ancient Open-Air Theatres: A Case Study in Syracusae

Shtrepi

Garcia

et al. 2018

Applied Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Featured Application: The work aims to give more insights into the relation between the sensitivity of the simulated objective parameters and the software input parameters for open-air ancient theatres. It is meant to raise awareness on the use of predictive acoustic software for unconventional outdoor environments in order to validate the possibility of re-using them as performance spaces. Abstract:Nowadays, ancient open-air theatres are often re-adapted as performance spaces for the additional historical value they can offer to the spectators' experience. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in the modelling and simulation of the acoustics of such spaces. These open-air performance facilities pose several methodological challenges to researchers and practitioners when it comes to precisely measure and predict acoustical parameters. Therefore this work investigates the accuracy of predicted acoustical parameters, that is, the Reverberation Time (T 20 ), Clarity (C 80 ) and Sound Strength (G), taking the ancient Syracusae open-air theatre in Italy as a case study. These parameters were derived from both measured and simulated Impulse Responses (IR). The accuracy of the acoustic parameters predicted with two different types of acoustic software, due to the input variability of the absorption and scattering coefficients, was assessed. All simulated and measured parameters were in good agreement, within the range of one "just noticeable difference" (JND), for the tested coefficient combinations.

show abstract

The Significance of Sound Diffraction Effects in Simulating Acoustics in Ancient Theatres

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

The Contribution of the Stage Design to the Acoustics of Ancient Greek Theatres

The Contribution of the Stage Design to the Acoustics of Ancient Greek Theatres

Time-frequency diffraction acoustic modeling of the Epidaurus ancient theatre

The Accuracy of Predicted Acoustical Parameters in Ancient Open-Air Theatres: A Case Study in Syracusae

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About