A hybrid method for open plan offices acoustics prediction using beam and particle tracing.

Since open plan office users often complain of annoyance due to noise, it is critical to consider acoustic quality when designing such a workspace. This can be achieved with acoustic simulation methods, however, it is often difficult to obtain precise results in reasonable computation times. This paper presents a hybrid simulation method combining beam and particle tracing algorithms. It is intended to overcome known issues of these simulation methods and take advantage of their benefits while maintaining low computation times. First, the hybrid method is assessed on the estimation of acoustic indicators as speech intelligibility, reverberation time and spatial decay measured in eleven existing work environments. It is shown that simulation results are in good accordance with measurements and that the hybrid method performs better than a standard beam tracing algorithm, particularly for reverberation time estimations. An example of acoustic design of an open plan office is then considered in order to analyze the effects of commonly used acoustic elements. This work is part of the MEPAS project, a common 2-year project between INRS and CSTB funded by ANSES, which aims to develop an efficient calculation method for the prediction of open plan office acoustics.