Abstract
A new method based on the cubic spline approximations ofpressure gradient was developed for particle velocity and acoustic intensity calculations. In this method, a cubic spline is interpolated for every four consecutive pressure measurements performed with equal spacing. In contrast to conventional approximate methods, only one microphoneand synchronized scanning are required in this technique. A numerical simulation was performed in order to evaluate the accuracy of this method. A monopole and a baffled piston were chosen as the acoustic sources in this simulation since the analytical solutions are easily available for comparison purposes. The cubic spline interpolation technique provided substantially better accuracy than the finite difference method. In addition, some preliminary experimental data will be presented for the cubic spline and finite difference techniques. [Work supported by NSF.]