Announcements

FFA would like to congratulate Kevin Packer on the publication of his paper in the March 2011 edition of the Canadian Acoustical Association (CAA) journal (click title below to download):

Reverberation Measurement and Prediction in Gymnasia with Non-Uniformly Distributed Absorption; The Importance of Diffusion.

The paper outlines the unexpected results of recent reverberation measurements in some newly constructed school gymnasia. RT measurements in the gymnasia were showing increasing RT times with the addition of acoustical absorption contrary to intuition and room acoustic modelling. Further investigation led to re-measurement with the addition of temporary sound scattering elements in the gymnasia resulting in a reduction in RT times and demonstrating the importance of diffusion during RT measurements.

The paper was published in the March 2011 edition of the Canadian Acoustical Association (CAA) journal. Unfortunately due to an error during the publication process the printed edition of the paper is missing some text and contains a duplicate paragraph. We understand it will be republished in the CAA December 2011 issue and the corrected version can also be downloaded by clicking on the title above.

Additionally Kevin presented the paper at the Canadian Acoustical Association (CAA) 2010 conference in Victoria, BC and will also be presenting the paper at the upcoming Alberta Acoustics & Noise Association (AANA) Spring Noise Conference in Banff, Alberta.

Kevin has been working at FFA since the fall of 2000. During this time he has worked on acoustical design related to sound and vibration isolation, room acoustics, speech privacy, and building service systems noise and vibration control. Projects undertaken have ranged from education facilities such as the University of Calgary, Energy Environment Experiential Learning (EEEL) Project, to broadcast facilities such as the CJSW Broadcast Centre, to houses of worship such as St. Joseph Seminary in Edmonton.