Optimizing building designs for mechanical equipment tones

Abstract

Poor noise conditions in buildings often involve tones from mechanical equipment. However, noise criteria generally neglect tones due to (1) lack of agreement on what constitutes a tone; (2) lack of acoustical data from equipment and noise treatment manufacturers in ⅓-octave or better resolution; and (3) limited design tools and resources to act on detailed information even if it were available. Since building designs also cannot be tested and optimized prior to production like cars, appliances and other mass-produced products, problems can remain hidden until final occupancy. Therefore, design strategies usually involve a variety of conservative and/or safe “best practice” approaches that avoid certain space adjacencies or equipment types altogether, often at significant cost. This is unsurprising when considering the complexity and risks associated with many tonal noise control problems, often including sound-structure interaction. However, a path for innovation exists through wider use of frequency-response-function (FRF) measurements (or measurements with otherwise known inputs) and the ability to analyze, share and incorporate the findings into source-path-receiver designs. This presentation will propose steps to gather, standardize and distribute such information and use case studies to illustrate how this is an enormous opportunity for optimizing building designs for cost and performance.