A numerical hybrid model for outdoor sound propagation in complex urban environments.

Noise mapping in large and dense urban areas is computationally challenging, if not impossible, with the use of conventional numerical techniques. Recently, promising results have shown the potential of energy-based models to compete with conventional numerical techniques. In this paper, a hybrid full-wave/diffusion propagation model is proposed to address some of the flaws of the traditional diffusion model.

Energy-based method for near-real time modeling of sound field in complex urban environments.

Prediction of the sound field in large urban environments has been limited thus far by the heavy computational requirements of conventional numerical methods such as boundary element (BE) or finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods. Recently, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to developing energy-based methods for this application, and results have shown the potential to compete with conventional methods. However, these developments have been limited to two-dimensional (2-D) studies (along street axes), and no real description of the phenomena at issue has been exposed.