New Acoustic Test Chambers at the University of Palermo

Acoustic test chambers at the University of Palermo have been completed after a design optimization of existent building structures. A unique building houses five reverberation chambers, differently coupled each other in order to achieve a large flexibility on testing procedures, and offices for the staff. Main measurements offered to national and international standards include determination of sound power, sound insulation and sound absorption. Reverberation chambers present peculiar geometries in order to achieve the desidered sound fields. Chambers structure and layout within the whole building, housing all the acoustic facilities, has been designed in order to achieve strong sound insulation requirements. The present work describes design solutions and reportes preliminary results from a large, still running, validation in order to characterize the chamber acoustic behaviour. Design targets and objective achievements are listed and commented.