Most of the room acoustics evaluation parameters are calculated from the energy decay curve obtained from the room impulse response. Schroeder’s backwards integration method is one of the most commonly used methods to obtain room impulse response. Although, the method holds its validity since 1964 and used extensively, obtaining room impulse response with sufficient length to observe total energy decay requires high computational cost especially in highly reverberant rooms. In such cases, present acoustical analysis and simulation tools either use data extrapolation and linear fitting methods or they fail to provide any reliable output. Hence, in order to provide reliable data based on such an impulse response, high computational cost and effort are required. In this context, a modification for acoustical analysis methods based on impulse response is proposed, comprising a linear fitting algorithm and extrapolation together with data culling. Proposed method is based on the linear energy decay assumption of Schroeder and ideal energy decay according to global reverberation time estimates. Method is proposed for diffuse field conditions regardless of the length of room impulse response. Validity of the proposed method is checked via a developed room acoustics tool, namely RAT, and case studies conducted with the mentioned tool.

Recently, a new model for the propagation of sound in interior volumes known as the acoustic diffusion equation has been explored as an alternative method for acoustic predictions and analysis. The model uses statistical methods standard in high frequency room acoustics to compute a spatial distribution of acoustic energy over time as a diffusion process. For volumes coupled through a structural partition, the energy consumed by structural vibration and acoustic energy transmitted between volumes has been incorporated through a simple acoustic transmission coefficient. In this paper, a Boundary Element Method (BEM) solution to the simple diffusion model is developed. The integral form of the 3D acoustic diffusion equation for coupled volumes is derived using the Laplace transform and Green’s Second Identity. The solution using the BEM is developed as well as an efficient Laplace transform inversion scheme to obtain both steady state and transient interior acoustic energy. In addition, a fully coupled model where both structural and acoustic energy are computed as a diffusion process is proposed. A simple volume configuration is examined as the diffusion models are analyzed and compared to conventional room acoustics analysis methods. Advantages of the energy diffusion methods over conventional methods, such as computation of energy distributions and accurate transmission from one volume to another, are revealed as the comparisons are made.