dB Full Form

dB full form is decibel and is a measurement unit used for measuring sound intensity. dB is used as a gauge signal strength of the electrical transmission. A decibel is used to quantify strength as an electrical signal or can be also known as the loudness of sound. The measured value of decibels is written as dB.

What is the Full Form of dB?

As mentioned above the full form of dB is decibel. The decibel is recognized as a logarithmic number which helps in expressing the ratio of physical quantity like intensity or power to the implied level. Decibel is also known as the unit of sound and is represented by ‘dB’ such as 20dB, 40dB, etc. It can be defined as a measurement unit which is used to express the ratio of one field quantity to another.

History of dB

If you are interested to discover more about decibel then it is important to trace back to its past i.e evolutionary phases. Check its phases of development below.

• It was first developed by Alexander Bell during the early 1900
• He proposed bel as an abbreviation
• Later bel scale was renamed decibel by engineers working at Bell Laboratories 
• After that decibel is used in multiple fields such as telecommunication, electrical engineering and many more.

What Does dB Mean?

The dB full form is decibels which are used to measure the sound intensity or power of an electrical signal. It is considered a unit of logarithmic which defines the ratio of a particular value. The value varies depending on the situation. 1 decibel is recognized as a ratio of 2 intensities. 

As mentioned above decibel is logarithmic which suggests that an increase of 10 dB corresponds to an increase in the intensity of sound. For e.g,. 20dB will be louder than another which means the sound is not twice as loud but it's 10 times as loud 

What is a Decibel Scale?

The ear of a human being has a fixed capacity to adapt to a wide range of sound which results instead of using a linear scale, a logarithmic scale used for representing levels of sound in a more effective way. Therefore the scale is named as decibel scale or dB scale

• O dB on the scale represents the smallest sound audible
• 10x more powerful sound is recognized as 10 dB and 100x more powerful sound is measured as 20 dB
• 1000x powerful sound is measured as 30 dB

What are the Properties of dB?

The decibel (dB full form) is a measurement unit which is used for expressing the ratio of 1 value of physical property to another on the basis of a logarithmic scale. And in the field of acoustics, the dB is used to represent the intensity of sound. In terms of communication, it is used to represent the ratio of two signal levels.

Below mentioned are some properties of dB

1. Decibels are not linear; they are logarithmic which means that an increase of 10 dB will represent an increase of tenfold in sound intensity and the increase of 20 dB will represent an increase of a hundredfold.
2. The decibel scale is not absolute but is a relative scale which means that the level of the decibel is measured according to the level of reference.
3. Decibel scale is very effective and easy to represent the ratio of any two quantities because it is based on logarithmic nature which allows a wide range of values to be shown using smaller no.

What are the Use Cases of dB?

dB is used as unit measurement which is used to represent the ratio of one value to another on a scale of logarithmic. The dB is generally used to represent the intensity of sound. It is used in multiple fields some of the examples are mentioned below

1. To measure the intensity of sound waves decibel is used to represent the sound loudness.  It means higher the decibel value, louder will be the sound
2. When comparing the strength of electrical signals decibel is commonly used.
3. During measuring microphones and speaker efficiency decibel is used to represent the efficiency and sensitivity of audio devices.
4. While measuring the intensity of the light dB is used to represent the value of light intensity.
5.  To measure communication signals decibel is used which helps in representing the value of loss signals while travelling through medium  like optical fibre cables.
6. While video and digital photography dB is used to represent the gain or loss of intensity of light used in the field of optics, digital photography and video.

What are Fractions of Decibels?

The fractions of decibels are used during the difference in intensity or when the power level is very low. For e.g the difference of 0.1 dB is considered very small in terms of intensity and the difference of 0.01 dB is more smaller than 0.1 dB. Therefore it is really important to remember that decibels are not linear, they are logarithmic, which means even the small difference in value represents a larger difference in actual intensity.

What are the Different Uses of decibels?

Below mentioned are the common uses of decibel which includes 

1. dB is used for measuring the intensity of sound
2. It helps in measuring the intensity of light
3.  measuring the loss or gain of electrical signals is easy with dB
4. For measuring the sensitivity of audio devices such as speakers, microphone, dB is highly preferred 

What are the Different Suffixes Used with Decibel?

Mentioned  below are some suffixes which are used along the dB

• dBm: It is used to indicate the measurement of decibels(dB full form) which is mentioned to be 1 milliwatt. DBm is generally used to measure power in telecommunications 
• dBW: It helps to represent the measurement of decibels which is mentioned to 1 watt
• dBV: It is used to indicate the measurement of decibels which is mentioned as 1 volt
• dBSPL: It is used to indicate the measurement of decibels which is mentioned to be 20 microscale.
• dBA: It is used to indicate the measurement of decibels which is adjusted to account for the sensitivity of the ear to different frequencies. 

Written By: Deepit Mathur