A theoretical model of barriers having inhomogeneous impedance surfaces.

When barriers are placed in parallel on opposite sides of a source, their performance deteriorates markedly. However, barriers made from materials of inhomogeneous impedance eliminate this drawback by altering the behavior of sound as it undergoes multiple reflections between the barriers. In this paper, a theoretical approach is carried out to estimate the performance of the proposed barriers. By combining the ray-tracing method and sound diffraction theory, the existence of different ray paths between the proposed barriers is revealed. Compared to conventional rigid-walled barriers, barriers having inhomogeneous surfaces may have the potential to be widely used in environmental noise control.