On the multiple microphone method for measuring in-duct acoustic properties in the presence of mean flow

Nowadays, the two-microphone method is accepted as the standard as specified in ASTM E1050-90 for measuring in-duct acoustic properties. However, research results on using the least square method with multiple measurement points and broadband excitation have been reported for enhancing the frequency response of the two-microphone method. In this paper, the effects of varying the relative measurement positions on errors in the estimation of the acoustic quantities is studied for the multiple microphone method. Both the theoretical and experimental results show that, among possible sensor positioning configurations, the equidistant positioning of sensors yields the smallest error within the effective measurement frequency range. In addition, it is noted that the measurement accuracy can be increased and the effective frequency range can be widened by increasing the number of equidistant sensors. Measurement examples are shown and the results support the findings.