Measurement of the scattering and absorption cross sections of the human body

Presented here are absolute measurements of the acoustic intensity scattered and absorbed by humans. The total scattering and absorption cross sections, sigma(T) and sigma(a), were obtained for individual humans walking randomly in a room, using long-duration acoustic reverberation. Within the audible range, the sound scattering spectra of the human body is similar to that of a hard ellipsoid with same volume (dimensions proportional to the mass to the one-third power). Moreover, increasing amounts of clothing have little effect on scattering while absorption is greatly increased. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.