Investigating acoustics and wave behaviour in cross-laminated timber panels

Abstract

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is a timber product that is becoming increasingly popular in construction in NZ because of the ability to prefabricate panels off-site, as well as being lightweight and sustainable compared to other building materials. There is currently a lack of information on its acoustical properties, as the complex geometry through the thickness means it is difficult to model and predict sound transmission. The WFE (wave and finite element) method has been employed as it allows for a small segment of a material to be modelled using standard FE methods and can incorporate several material layers. It then requires finding the mass and stiffness matrices of the segment and post-processing them to determine the wave behaviour of the structure as a whole. The WFE method was used to model the sound transmission of several different CLT panels and these results were compared against measurements taken by the National Research Council Canada. In-house testing was also performed to obtain experimental wavenumbers, and these were also compared to wavenumbers produced by the WFE method.