Sound propagation outdoors and its interaction with green and vegetation

Competences:

Application and development of acoustic time-domain models for sound propagation in realistic outdoor environments (including refraction of sound, atmospheric turbulence, undulating terrain). There is specific expertise regarding the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method since 2 decades.
Application and development regarding the Parabolic equation (PE) model for long-distance sound propagation in realistic outdoor environments.
Incorporation of complicated wind flow profiles (CFD modeling) in acoustic propagation simulations.
Hybrid time-domain/time-domain and time-domain/frequency-domain modeling for sound propagation outdoors.
Design of traditional and innovative (low-height) noise barriers and earth mounds (berms), including wind effects for realistic long-term efficiency assessment.
Designing building envelope greening solutions (green roofs or vegetated roof tops, non-ground based wall vegetation or green walls, vegetation covered barriers) for sound level reduction in urban streets and nearby urban zones.
Optimizing tree belts along roads to achieve noise reduction.

Guidelines for optimizing road traffic noise shielding by non-deep tree belts (Timothy Van Renterghem, (2014) ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING. 69. p.276-286)
In-situ measurements of sound propagating over extensive green roofs (Timothy Van Renterghem and Dick Botteldooren, (2011) BUILDING AND ENVIRONMENT. 46(3). p.729-738)
Prediction-step staggered-in-time FDTD: An efficient numerical scheme to solve the linearised equations of fluid dynamics in outdoor sound propagation (Timothy Van Renterghem and Dick Botteldooren, (2007) APPLIED ACOUSTICS. 68(2). p.201-216)
Efficient FDTD-PE model for sound propagation in situations with complex obstacles and wind profiles (Timothy Van Renterghem , EM SALOMONS and Dick Botteldooren, (2005) ACTA ACUSTICA UNITED WITH ACUSTICA. 91(4). p.671-679)