Welcome to ACOUSTICS 2013. These proceedings contain papers presented at the 2013 Annual Conference of the Australian Acoustical Society held in Victor Harbor, SA during November 2013. The Australian Acoustical Society aims to promote and advance the science and practice of acoustics in all its branches to the wider community and provide support to acousticians. The annual conferences of the Society have a long and distinguished history, providing an important forum for the dissemination of information relating to the science and practice of acoustics in Australia.
The title for this conference, Science, Technology and Amenity, is representative of much of the work being undertaken currently in acoustics and vibration research, education, legislation, consulting and environmental development, not only within Australia but worldwide. South Australia has more operating wind farms than any other state in Australia and it is also where Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) undertakes a significant amount of underwater acoustics work. In addition South Australia hosts Australia’s submarine construction and maintenance facilities as well as facilities for the construction of Naval surface ships. For this reason plenary and keynote presentations, and special sessions are devoted to these areas of work.
For this year’s conference, the organising committee decided to hold it outside of Adelaide and the beautiful seaside town of Victor Harbor, on the Fleurieu Peninsula, was selected. From the 111 abstracts originally submitted and an extensive blind peer review process, the final technical program for the conference consists of a total of 84 papers, including several that are being presented orally. With the total numbers attending being in excess of 170, this is the largest Acoustics conference the SA division has sponsored.
The conference program includes two plenary presentations, and three keynote presentations. The International Research Workshop on Children and Noise, organised by Lex Brown from Griffith University was also held prior to commencement of the conference. In addition, the society’s AGM and the Inaugural meeting of Australian Educators in Acoustics are to be held during the conference.
The organising committee wishes to thank our plenary speakers Dr G.P. Frits van den Berg of the Environmental Health Centre in the Netherlands and Tim Duda of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA. We also thank our keynote presenters Ian Bedwell, Con Doolan, and Kerstin Persson Waye. We greatly appreciate the participation and input from all authors and delegates in attendance for their efforts.
Commercial interest and industry support in the conference has also been excellent, and this is expressed by a full complement of exhibitors. We thank our event sponsors, partners and exhibitors for their part in making this event and look forward to their support for future activities of the Society within South Australia.
Last, but certainly not least, I wish to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the organising committee, Terrance McMinn in dual role of OCPMS Manager for the conference and AAS Webmaster for our conference site, and Norm Broner in the role of as Exhibition Manager.
Peter Heinze
Conference Chair
November 2013