Building Acoustics and Noise Control in Buildings

Abstract

Emitting and perceiving sound are the most important ways that people use to exchange information. Sound is a phenomenon related to mechanical waves and oscillations that propagate through compressible/elastic matter, such as air or building materials, in the form of sound waves. However, human hearing also senses disturbing sounds, referred to as noise. Noise is constantly generated by the people and equipment in buildings and their surroundings, affecting well-being, productivity and health. As most of our time is spent in buildings, ensuring the proper level of acoustic comfort and protection from all types of noise is an important function of any building. There are two important tasks for the discipline of acoustics in the scope of building physics, associated with the acoustic-related comfort in buildings: room acoustics deals with the quality of sound perceived by the listeners in rooms containing sound sources, while building acoustics deals with the protection of listeners from the transmission of the noise in the surroundings, as well as between the rooms in a building, with adequate sound insulation. The first task focuses on the design of the architectural form of the rooms and the sound-absorbing properties of interior surfaces that define the reverberation time of the rooms, while the building acoustics focuses on the design and evaluation of sound insulation against airborne and impact sound.