Lightweight low profile sound wall panel

Abstract

Decreased weight, improved sound transmission loss, and maintained sound absorption and durability are all achieved by a highway barrier incorporating a new acoustic barrier panel. The panel remains of the type suitable for being forms, in combinations of multiple panels and multiple, earth-anchored or structure-mounted support posts, into sound barrier walls for use along highways, other rights of way, and the like. The invented acoustic barrier panel comprises a sandwich of slabs. The sandwich comprises a central slab, a first, outer slab sandwich alongside the central slab, and a second, outer slab sandwiched alongside the central slab, opposite the first outer slab. Uniquely, a first grout curtain is interposed between and joins the central slab and the first, outer slab, while a second grout curtain is interposed between and joins the central slab and the second, outer slab. As most preferred, all slabs constitute Durisol™ wood concrete. Welded wire mesh or galvanized welded wire fabric or geotextile fabric or geogrid or other synthetic or metallic reinforcement may reinforce the panels. With panel thicknesses ranging from two and three quarter inches to seven inches, panel weights have been found to be in the range of eighteen to forty pounds per square foot (PSF). At least one known, current highway project specification requires a panel weight of less than twenty PSF and a sound transmission loss of at least twenty-three dB. A prototype panel as invented with a two and three quarter inch thickness has exhibited a weight of nineteen PSF and a sound transmission loss of twenty-eight dB. Sound transmission loss across the panel as invented has been a minimum of twenty-eight dB at all frequencies while loss across past and other panels has been much less.