If I put a 10 pound weight on a scale, the scale will read 10 pounds. If I put another 10 pound weight next to it, the scale with now read 20 pounds.
If I have $10 bill in my pocket…well, that’s a LOT more cash than I usually carry. But if I somehow come into possession of another $10 bill and put it in my pocket, now I have $20. And it probably won’t be for long.
If there’s an EXAIR Model 1100 Super Air Nozzle supplied with compressed air at 80psig, and my Sound Level Meter is reading a level of 74 dBA, and I hook another one up right next to it, my Sound Level Meter now reads about 78 dBA.
Wait, what? Did we just break math there? You, and your ears, will be happy to know that there’s perfectly valid math behind the third (as well as the first two) statements above. The third one’s just a little different, that’s all.
See, sound power (that’s “how loud” sound is, as measured at the point of generation) and sound pressure (“how loud” it is, as measured at the point where it’s heard) are both quantified in units called decibels. And, unlike mass or wealth (the first two examples above), which are linear & additive, measurement of sound power & pressure is done on a logarithmic scale. That means simple arithmetic won’t work…we have to use a logarithmic equation to ‘add’ those sound levels together. It looks like this:
Combined Sound Level (dBA) = 10 x log10[10SL1/10 + 10SL2/10 + 10SL3/10 …]
Where “SL1”, “SL2”, “SL3”, etc., are the sound levels, in decibels, for the “noisemakers” in question. So, for the two Model 1100 Super Air Nozzles, generating 74 dBA each:
10 x log10[1074/10 + 1074/10] = 77.65 dBA
And just to prove the math works, we made a video of a real live test:
All EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products are engineered & manufactured to be safe, efficient, and as quiet as possible. If you’d like to find out more, give me a call.
Russ Bowman, CCASS
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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