Welcome to my mathematics website, where I post papers that I write. This collection consists of research papers, demonstrations of interesting topics, and projects.
Abstract: Our senses are one of the most vital parts of how we understand our surroundings. One environment that students and faculty at USC spend most of their time in, is in the classroom. Sound travels as a wave, and can be described mathematically using a partial differential equation, the wave equation. We wanted to understand how sound travels in a USC classroom and compare our understanding in the real world to simulated data, using a numerical method, Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD). This connects the field of acoustics with the field of mathematics. In order to accurately simulate the acoustics of the room, we needed to measure the physical properties of the room, such as the length, width, and height of the space. It is crucial to understand whether sound is going to be reflected or absorbed, and that is dependent on the material of the space. We then used a source at a position in the space and a microphone to record that source, creating an impulse response. We then analyzed these for reverberation times. By acoustically analyzing DMC 157, we found that there are extremely high reverberation times (14-24 seconds),at speaking frequencies (80-300 Hz), where an average classroom should have a reverberation time between 0.6 and 0.7 seconds. This means that the materials in DMC 157 are very reflective, causing copies of the initial sound wave to propagate, causing the initial sound to emanate for longer. We also found that as frequency increases, reverberation time decreases due to higher frequencies being more directional. Using FDTD, we ran a simulation using the numerical scheme and the geometry of the room, by playing a source and receiver in the locations that were in the classroom. The simulation confirmed our results that the reverberation in DMC 157 is very high.
Presented at: University of Southern California Undergraduate Symposium for Creative and Scholarly Work, USC, April 2025.
The intention of this text is to create an intuitive approach to single variable calculus.
Presentation: Acoustic Modeling Sound Propagation in Classrooms Using Finite-Difference Time-Domain
Location: University of Southern California
Date: April 2025
My name is Ryan Hausner and I am a current undergraduate student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. My current degree program is Applied and Computational Mathematics (BS). My research interests include mathematical modeling, numerical methods, and mathematical physics (primarily wave equations).
Email: r.hausner14@gmail.com
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