Numerical Simulation of Acoustic Wave Propagation to Assess Noise- Induced Damage to Human Hearing.

摘要

The objective of the effort was to develop mathematical algorithms and corresponding efficient numerical simulation tools for modeling propagation of acoustic waves through the human head, and, subsequently, to apply these tools to simulate energy transfer to the inner ear, and to assess the noise induced damage to the human hearing system. The unique achievements/developments pertaining to this effort are: (i) adaptation of non-lossy, error controlled Fast Fourier Transform Adaptive Integral Method compression technique to the problems of acoustics, (ii) development of fast integral equation formulation for solving high-contrast problems (e.g. biological tissues embedded in air), (iii) parallel, distributed memory implementation of the developed algorithms with near perfect scalability, (iv) initiation of the extension of the developed approach to a full elasto-acoustic problem In summary, the developed fast, parallel, volumetric integral equation based solver is capable of accurate large-scale numerical simulations involving anatomically realistic models of a human head discretized with several million tetrahedral elements and characterized by complex geometrical details and large density contrasts.