Reverberation Chamber Determination of the Acoustic Power of Pure-Tone Sources

A method was developed that is used to determine the acoustic power radiated by pure-tone and “nearly-pure-tone” sources in a reverberation chamber. The 3-dimensional standing wave sound field generated by a pure-tone source is sampled by a microphone that slowly sweeps a circular path in the chamber. The method relates the average value of the sound pressure at the peaks of the “sample” to its effective rms pressure. The acoustic power of the source is then readily calculated from the effective rms pressure, the volume of the chamber and its absorption.