Application of the method of fundamental solutions to predict the acoustic performance of T-shaped thin barriers

A frequency-domain formulation based on Method of Fundamental Solutions (MFS) is used to simulate the sound field generated by a point source in the presence of a T-shaped thin noise barrier. The MFS formulation is here developed by making use of adequate Green's functions, defined by using the image-source technique, that satisfy specific boundary conditions, allowing decreasing the number of discretized surfaces and consequently reducing the computational cost of the numerical model. Both the ground and the building are modeled as infinite rigid plane surfaces, and the barrier is assumed to be absorptive. The surface treatment of the barrier is characterized by a porous material. The Zwikker and Kosten model is here used for predicting the acoustic properties of the porous material. To validate the numerical implementation of the proposed method, the results are compared with solutions of the Dual-BEM formulation. Numerical simulations are carried out in order to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method and the performance of the T-shaped thin noise barriers in typical cases of traffic noise.