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Constructing new buildings, whether residential, schools, office buildings or industrial workplaces, has become an increasingly complex work area. Today, more than ever, we understand the importance of building structures for being energy efficient, safe and comfortable for occupants. Creating these high-performance buildings starts from the planning stage, where design professionals and technical experts consider all factors that make the space function as intended, whether it is optimizing the productivity of office workers, providing quiet recovery areas for patients, good acoustic effects in learning environments for students, or any number of other examples, to make the acoustic characteristics of the space match its intended use.
One of the factors often overlooked in the planning stage is acoustics, but the acoustic environment of a building can have a significant impact on the occupant experience. For example, research has established that sound can negatively affect health and recovery periods in hospitals. The design trend driving the creation of open collaborative workspaces may also reduce privacy and productivity. Building practices and products chosen to meet sustainability goals may sometimes inadvertently sacrifice the ability of the space to provide occupant comfort by reducing unnecessary noise.
Considering the acoustic needs of a building at the beginning of the planning process can help save time and money by reducing the need for renovation or retrofitting after construction is completed. In this acoustic article series, we focus on rethinking the role of acoustic design and engineering. Raising awareness and understanding of acoustics among industry professionals (including architects and designers, owners, and the general public) will only help drive this shift. Occupants of these high-performance buildings will continue to demand that sound be considered as a key factor in new construction.
At a basic level, sound is very small and very fast fluctuations of air pressure above and below atmospheric pressure. All sounds - HVAC systems, vibrating phones on tables, road traffic - use this principle. The ear is very sensitive to sound sources, and the range of pressure vibrations from faint sounds heard to loud sounds is very large.
The ear does not experience sound in a linear way. Instead, it uses a logarithmic scale, measuring energy in decibels (dB). To the ear, a 60dB sound only needs to be reduced to 50dB to experience a sound half as loud. In addition, a sound from 60dB to 40dB (i.e., from a busy street to a quiet library) will be experienced as a more dramatic change. The possibility of sound damaging our hearing is proportional to its intensity, not to its loudness.
Facts about sound Acoustic engineers use decibels (dB) to measure sound or quantify sound loudness. The energy in the loudest sounds commonly heard is one million times that in the faintest sounds audible. The ear is a very sensitive organ. The range of pressure changes from faint sounds heard to loud sounds is very large. Producing a sound twice as loud requires 10 times the power. Conversely, to make it half as loud, 90% of the sound must be eliminated. The possibility of sound damaging our hearing is proportional to its intensity, not loudness. The decibel logarithmic scale for measuring sound shows that while a 3dB change results in a barely perceptible perceptual difference to the human ear, a 20dB swing is a very significant change. Acoustic engineers use decibels to quantify sound loudness, but in the acoustic design of buildings, this measurement is only one way to evaluate its performance. Two main indicators are used in noise measurement to evaluate the acoustic performance of building acoustics - sound absorption and sound transmission loss. Acoustic absorption is the ability of a material to absorb rather than reflect sound (think of the difference between jumping on a trampoline versus jumping into a pile of pillows). Sound transmission loss refers to the ability of a material to reduce sound transmission from one space to another (i.e., blocking noise or sound between rooms). When you try to find solutions that meet good architectural acoustic requirements for your next project, understanding the difference between the two is very important.
When referring to sound absorption, you should look for products that can absorb reverberation and echo in a room. If you want a product that can stop or block sound, you will need a heavier, denser material. Materials with high sound absorption are not suitable for stopping sound transmission. For example, concrete has good sound transmission loss, but not very good sound absorption. Rock wool ceilings have a high level of sound absorption, while wall and roof products as components rock wool board can help reduce sound between rooms as well as noise from the external environment. Depending on the application, the acoustic characteristics of the building materials you specify and use will play an important role in overall sound insulation. Sound is measured in logarithmic decibels, and the magnitude of sound is affected by the sound absorption and sound transmission loss of the space and building materials. While sound absorption is the ability of a material to absorb rather than reflect sound waves, sound transmission loss highlights the reduction of sound energy as it passes through the built environment. Both are important considerations in architectural design and building material selection.
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