STARAcoustics

Acoustic Intensity Testing

CATSAcoustics is a complete acoustic intensity program for use with Spectral Dynamics Puma/Cougar data acquisitions systems. STARAcoustics is a complete stand alone acoustic intensity program for use with many other multi-channel FFT instruments or real-time octave analyzers and microphone probes.

Acoustic intensity analysis enables you to: 

• Quickly identify noise sources
• Accurately determine the sound power radiating from noise sources
• Acquire measurements in acoustically noisy environments (in-situ), eliminating the need for costly acoustic chambers.
• Check for ISO standards compliance in seconds

Optimized for identifying noise sources and quantifying sound power, STAR Acoustics simplifies testing and helps you attain unmatched testing accuracy. It's comprehensive features set enables you to import data from your instrument, perform detailed analysis, view results in a variety of formats, and produce high-quality reports.

Test Setup and Data Analysis

Quickly Set Up Standard or Custom Test Configurations

STARAcoustics organizes data by project: All test parameters related to the instrument, microphone, and environmental conditions are conveniently located in a single Project Slate.

New and occasional users can guide themselves step-by-step through the acoustic intensity process by referring to the Show Assistant, a process-oriented task list. 

Analyze Measurements and Data Sets in a Flexible Display 

The STARAcoustics program has a state-of-the-art, interactive measurement display designed expressly for narrow band and octave band acoustic measurements, including real, complex, and bi-polar data. You can view individual measurements, or, because the display accommodates an unlimited number of measurement windows, view entire data sets to spot trends or anomalies. A comprehensive set of display features-cursors, zooming, grids, and scaling-enables you to focus on the measurements of interest. 

Comprehensive Measurement Analysis Functions

The STARAcoustics program performs a very wide variety of functions on narrowband and octave-band intensity or sound pressure level (SPL) data. Narrowband cross spectra and auto power data is automatically converted to Intensity and Sound Pressure datatypes respectively, synthesize data into 1/1 octave, 1 /3 octave, or user-defined bands. Weighting (A, B, and C) and correction (amplitude and phase) are easily applied. Critical data evaluation functions such as Pressure-Intensity(PI) index, Residual PI, and Dynamic Capability index are automatically computed as part of the Plot tab Data Types. 

Checking of Measurement Quality 

To check overall measurement quality, the STARAcoustics Measurement display can be configured to overlay the Dynamic Capability Index of the measurement system and the PI Index of selected measurements. You can easily scroll through the PI Indexes for each measurement location and to visually inspect measurements to confirm that they are within the acceptable limits of the dynamic capability of the measurement system.

Noise Source Identification

Locate Noise Sources

CATSAcoustics/STARAcoustics graphs data in two or three dimensions to help you identify the location of noise sources. Contour maps handle both uniform and non-uniform test grids that match the geometry of a planar test surface. 3D vector displays enable you to examine the characteristics of sound fields, particularly around non-uniform structures. The vectors provide insight into noise source locations, strength of intensity, and propagation direction. 

Sound Power Analysis

Quantify and Compare Total Acoustic Energy Using Sound Power

STARAcoustics uses the areas associated with each measurement location to compute overall sound power. You can view computed power levels in either tabular or chart formats, in watts, decibels or percent of total power, and computed by point, component, or overall level. You can rank data to quickly identify significant sound power contributors or choose a single command to compute the composite sound power spectrum from a set of measurements. 

Noise Source Ranking Highlights Key Noise Contributors 

Computing the sound power for points and groups of points, called Templates and Components, is a powerful technique for quickly locating major contributors to overall noise. CATSAcoustics/STARAcoustics can automatically rank points by power levels, clearly identifying the most significant contributors to overall noise. To report your results, select a tabular or graphical format, or export the data to Excel for charting.

Testing To Standards

Confirm Compliance with ISO Standards

CATSAcosutics/STARAcoustics automatically evaluates intensity data for compliance with the ISO 9614-1 and ISO 9614-2 standards, instantly confirming data quality and providing detailed recommendations for standards compliance.

After you select an ISO standard and accuracy grade option, CATSAcoustics/STARAcoustics evaluates the collected measurements and produces an easy-to-read report. The report shows test criterion, measured values, computed functions, limits, pass or fail, and action items for correcting fail conditions. 

Immediate Identification of Prominent Discrete Tones

Identification of discrete tones is essential for solving problems related to sound quality in devices with strong tonal noise contributors, such as electric motors and gears. Using ISO 7779 and ANSI SI 2.1 0 procedures, STARAcoustics automatically identifies the prominent discrete tones of a narrowband SPL.

Data Acquisition Systems

CATSAcoustics uses measurement files that are stored directly from the Spectral Dynamics Puma/Cougar data acquisitions systems. 

Data Import

STARAcoustics gives you the flexibility to choose how you work and which measurement system to use. For example, upon request we will provide you with a version of STARAcoustics that can connect directly to FFT or real-time octave analyzers to transfer measurements from either narrowband or octave tests, controlling the process with a special GPIB interface window. STARAcoustics optimizes the speed of data acquisition with automatic features such as measurement average completion detection, automatic transfer and save, point and direction labeling, and measurement restart. Once, the data is acquired in the STAR binary format the data can then be imported into the latest version of STARAcoustics v4.3. 

STARAcoustics also accepts measurement data saved to disk in popular data formats. You import the data into STARAcoustics using a data disk translator, which allows you to select from a variety of measurement labeling methods and data types. Batch operation speeds the process.

Documenting Test Results

Professional Reports

CATSAcoustics/STARAcoustics provides multiple options for efficiently creating professional reports or presentations. All tables and graphics can be exported into popular ASCII formats for Spreadsheets and desktop publishing programs or copied and pasted directly into other applications running in the Windows environment. 

STARModal is a registered trademark and STARAcoustics, STARBase, STARView, STARStruct, and STAR Gateway, STARReport, and The STAR System are trademarks of Spectral Dynamics, Inc. Microsoft, Windows, and Excel are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. All other products or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

In keeping with commitment to continuous product improvement, the information herein is subject to change.