EAA INDEX 2006

BELGIAN ACOUSTICAL ASSOCIATION -ABAV-

1. SOCIETY LOGO

2. SOCIETY DATA

1. Country: Belgium

SOCIETY DATA
2. Status: Full Member
3. Society name (in English): Belgian Acoustical Association
4. Original Society name: Association Belge des Acousticiens (French) Belgische Akoestische Vereniging (Dutch)
5. Society acronyms: ABAV
6. Address: Université de Liège, Institut Montefiore – B28 B-4000 Sart-Tilman, Liège 1, Belgium
7. Phone:
8. Fax:
9. E-mail:
10. Web: www.abav.be
11. Society Journal (name):

PRESIDENT DATA
12. Family name, first name: Vermeir, Gerrit
13 Institution/Company: K.U.Leuven Laboratory of Acoustics and Laboratory of Building Physics
14. Address: Celestijnenlaan, 200 D B-3001 Leuven Heverlee, Belgium
15. Phone: +32 16 327128
16. Fax: +32 16 327984
17. E-mail: Gerrit.Vermeir@bwk.kuleuven.ac.be

SECRETARY/SECRETARIAT DATA
18. Family name, first name: Soubrier, Daniel
19. Institution/Company: CSTC
20. Address: 21, avenue P. Holoffe, B-1342 Limelette, Belgium
21. Phone: +32 2 6557711
22. Fax: +32 2 6530729
23. E-mail: Daniel.Soubrier@bbri.be

TREASURER DATA
24. Family name, first name: Houtave Peter
25. Institution/Company: Acoustic Technologies
26. Address: Avenue Brugmannlaan 215, B-1050 BRUSSELS-Belgium
27. Phone: 0032 (0)2 344 85 85
28. Fax: 0032 (0)2 346 20 99
29. E-mail: mail@atech-acoustictechnologies.com

3. SOCIETY PROFILE

The Belgian Acoustical Society (ABAV) was founded in 1966, as a national society without financial profit goal. The society gathers all interested persons from universities, research laboratories, consulting offices, industries, governmental organisations, ... with activities in the field of acoustics in its broadest sense: physical acoustics, industrial noise control, building acoustics, environmental protection, electro-acoustics, noise protection, ...

The ABAV Society has the following goals:

The membership of the association includes the foremost workers in the field of acoustics in Belgium. The members are engineers, physicists and architects working in academic institutions, governments and consulting firms having a strong interest or involvement in the effects and control of noise related areas. ABAV has also sustaining members.

As well as holding national meetings each year, the association has run a number of international conferences, the most notable being the 5th International Congress on Acoustics (I.C.A.) held at the University of Liège in 1965. At this meeting a total of 450 papers were presented and 1600 participants attended. Also a FASE Symposium on Speech Intelligibility was held at the University of Liège in 1973. A total of 32 papers were presented and 135 participants attended the meeting. Several joint meetings have already been organised together with the Acoustical Society of the Netherlands (NAG, Nederlands Akoestisch Genootschap) and the Société Française d'Acoustique (SFA).

Since 1973 the Belgian Acoustical Association, together with the Acoustical Society of the Netherlands and the Royal Flemish Society of Engineers (KVIV, Koninklijke Vlaamse Ingenieursvereniging) organise a specialised course in acoustics and noise control. Up to now (2003) already 30 courses have been organised and more than 1800 people attended.

The Belgian Acoustical Association has been a member of International Institute for Noise Control Engineering (I-INCE) since 1979 and during the past years has been an active participant in the affairs of the Institute, with representation at all intervening INTER-NOISE conferences and meetings of the Board and the General Assembly. The Belgian Acoustical Association has organised, in collaboration with the Royal Flemish Society of Engineers, the 22nd International Conference on Noise Control Engineering INTER-NOISE 93 ("People versus Noise") at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1993. At the congress 410 distinguished, invited and contributed papers were presented and over 900 participants attended the meeting.

The Belgian Acoustical Association was one of the founding members of the European Acoustical Association (EAA-EEIG) in 1993 and organised in 1996, the first EAA FORUM ACUSTICUM in Antwerp. About 400 papers were presented and 700 participants attended. The Belgian Acoustical Association also collaborated with the Société Française d'Acoustique (SFA) for the successful organisation of the 6th CFA (Congrès Français d'Acoustique) in 2002 at Lille, France.

Finally one can also affirm that the Belgian acoustical profession is well-known due to the international activities of several major development and consultancy firms and offices, and due to the work of several university research groups and acoustically related research institutes.