Development of realistic scale model auditors

Scale model auditors in previous researches have frequently been adopted to simplify the shape and roughly approximate the sound absorption of a real human auditor with limited amount of clothing in a seated state. As the importance of acoustic design has been emphasized not only in concert halls and theatres, but also in rock and pop venues where stood auditors dominate floors, it is necessary to look into the sound absorption of auditors in a wider range beyond the existing framework. In the present work, a new approach through a sequential process from the body skins to the amount of clothing is employed to develop a realistic scale model auditor. In comparison with full-scale results, five types of independent auditors being separated from chairs and capable of standing or sitting are successfully constructed with various amount of wearable clothing. Furthermore, the effects of clothing on the absorption characteristics of auditors are presented in the sparse standing and densely seated conditions. A series of experiments to examine the validity of the developed scale model auditors for both sparse standing and densely seated states confirmed that the sound absorption characteristics of model auditors are well accordance with full-scale results.