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Characteristics of Sound Response in Ear Canal of Human and Reproduction of Acoustical Space

인간 이도의 소리응답특성과 음향공간의 재현

  • 안태수 (동의대학교 대학원 기계공학과) ;
  • 이두호 (동의대학교 기계공학과)
  • Received : 2011.06.20
  • Accepted : 2011.08.10
  • Published : 2011.09.20

Abstract

The human ear canal amplifies the sound pressure level at specific frequency bands. The characteristics of the ear canal are very similar to those of curved cylindrical tube. In this study, the characteristics of sound transfer in human ear canal were measured and the acoustical space of ear canal was reproduced from the canal cavity geometry. For the measurement of sound transfer function in ear canal, a probe microphone and a reference microphone were used. The sound transfer functions were measured for 5 human subjects. To reproduce the acoustical space of the ear canal, two kinds of ear simulator were designed. The first one is a straight cylindrical tube type and the other is a real-shape ear of which geometry was taken from a micro-CT scanning of a human ear. The characteristics of the reproduced apparatus were compared with those of the human and a commercial ear simulator, RA0045 of G.R.A.S. Inc. The comparison results show that the developed apparatus well represent the ear canal characteristics in the low frequency, but have limited coincidence in level over high frequency range.

Keywords

References

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