Sound Attenuation by Medical Masks

During pandemic periods, it was advisable and mandatory to wear a mask to prevent and limit the spread of virus. Masks are designed to limit the dispersion of particles in suspension during respiration and while speaking, so it has become common to use them in workplaces, public spaces and even outdoors. However, the use of masks raises the question of whether there are potential limitations in audio-verbal communication. The purpose of this work is the evaluation of sound reduction due to wearing masks that were tested on two types of sound sources: a loudspeaker installed in the oral cavity of a mannequin head and human (male) voice. From the acoustic measurements, it was noted that the sound reduction is not significant at low frequencies, while it increased for frequencies higher than 1.000 Hz. The greatest sound attenuation was found with FFP2 type mask.