Acoustic Study of an Auditorium by the Determination of Reverberation Time and Speech Transmission Index

The quality of the communication between teachers and students and ultimately, of classroom education itself, is closely linked to the acoustic quality of the auditorium. This acoustic quality can be characterized based on the reverberation time (RT), speech transmission index (STI) and the sound insulation. In this context, an acoustic study was conducted in an auditorium located in the Higher Institute of Technological Studies (ISET) of Sfax, south of Tunisia. The investigation used acoustic measurement methods to assess the acoustic quality of the nave and the results were compared with the standards ISO 3382-1 and ISO 3382-2.The results of this work were obtained by measuring the RT values and the sound insulation of auditorium façades. In addition to these parameters obtained by measurements, STI was obtained through the computer simulation (utilizing ODEON ver. 4.2, assuming the occupied case). The results showed that the measured and calculated values were consistent with those proposed by the standards for speech auditoria (RT500Hz = 0.98 s, D50> 50% and STI> 0.45), and are in line with the speech intelligibility requirements.