On 24th June, Dr. James Abbott, Head of School-Designate, Engineering and Computing at SBC, was invited to give a lecture at the Institute of Acoustics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
In his lecture entitled ‘The Interaction of Sound Waves with Flexible Porous Materials’, Dr. Abbott shared his knowledge and experience on theoretical models to predict the acoustical behavior of certain porous materials, in various geometries, requiring accurate modeling of microscopic interactions between the airborne waves and the host matrix. He introduced a simple two-fluid model to explore the acoustical performance of porous materials when flexibility of the host structure is present. It was suggested that consideration should not only be given to the material in bulk, but also as a composite structure, a periodic structure, an anisotropic layer, and finally in the presence of mean flow.
The lecture was very well received by the many scientists who attended. The topic clearly had applicability to their present work on the theory of sound absorption with flexible materials, and also experiments studying how steady airflow can affect acoustic performance. They welcomed Dr. Abbott to return in the near future, to address the Institute again on the subject of sound.
Dr. James Abbott is presently Head of School-Designate, Engineering and Computing at SBC. His research interests include sound absorptive materials, active noise control, and musical and architectural acoustics. He has worked previously at Bolt Beranek and Newman, Stanford Research Institute, and most recently, as an Acoustic Test Engineer for Apple, Inc. He has also taught acoustics extensively, including at The Cooper Union in New York City, University of California at Berkeley, and most recently at Fudan University, Shanghai. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1991, working with Professor K. U. Ingard on a thesis related to acoustical theory of specialized passive noise control devices and materials.
