Correlation between air and sound propagation to determine air permeability of buildings for single/double wood pane windows

Abstract

Building air leakage is a very important criterion on which one building could be differentiated from another one. It can lead to a huge impact on several important parameters inside a building, like energy consumption or indoor air quality. There are several possibilities for its determination, and it could be highlighted three major categories: experimental determinations, predicting models or simulations programs. As the experimental approach is difficult to be conducted being weather dependent or time consuming and the predicting models could lead to errors up to 100%, in this paper we aim to present a novel experimental method for determining the air permeability of a building, by measuring the sound pressure level difference between outdoor-indoor of the analyzed façade. An experimental campaign was conducted using the Blower Door method and an acoustic approach determining the impact of the window’s type on the airtightness of a façade. In extension, the correlation between the two transfer phenomena was highlighted throughout a mathematical model. Multiple acoustical parameters that could influence the air leakage determinations were analyzed. The importance of the reverberation time of the analyzed chamber in the acoustical transfer phenomenon was determined and a practical nomogram was developed.