Architectural Acoustics

Presented by
Ar.Raghunandan A
 Acoustics – What we will cover

1. Acoustics I
• Properties and defects of sound
• Parameters for good acoustical condition of a room

2. Acoustics II
• Noise control methods for air-borne and structure-borne noises
• Acoustical materials and construction
• Sound amplification system

3. Acoustics III
• Reverberation time calculation and recommendations for acoustical
treatment
• Acoustical treatment Layout design
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Noise
Unwanted sound which may be hazardous to health, interferes with communications
or is disturbing.

Noise Pollution
Excessive amount of noise or an unpleasant sound that causes temporary disruption in
the natural balance/activity of human or animal life.

Sources of Noise Pollution

Industrial Noise Pollution Non-Industrial Noise Pollution

• Noise from various industries and

big machines working at a very Natural Artificial
high speed and high noise
intensity. • Thunder • Road Traffic
• Storm • Aircraft
• Earthquake • Railway
• Sea/Ocean Waves • Construction sites
• Volcanic eruption • Electronic equipments
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Adverse Effects of Noise pollution

• Hearing Problems - Constant exposure to loud levels of noise can easily result in the damage
of our ear drums and loss of hearing.

• Health Issues - Occurrence of aggressive behavior, disturbance of sleep, constant stress,

fatigue and hypertension can be linked to excessive noise levels. These can lead to more
severe and chronic health issues later in life. Constant sharp noise can give you severe
headache and disturb your emotional balance

• Sleeping Disorders - Loud noise can hamper sleeping pattern and may lead to irritation and
uncomfortable situations.

• Cardiovascular Issues - high intensity noise causes high blood pressure and increases heart
beat rate as it disrupts the normal blood flow

• Trouble Communicating – Leads to misunderstanding

• Effect on Wildlife
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Noise (with respect to the built spaces)

Outdoor Noise Indoor Noise

• Sources can range from transportation to • conversation of the occupants, footsteps,

mechanical noise such as AC compressors,
pumps and fans
• Noise conditions vary from time-to-time and
banging of doors, shifting of the furniture,
operation of the cistern and water closet,
playing of radio, television, music system,
cooling and ventilation machinery, etc,
contribute most of the noise emanating from
an adjacent room or an adjacent building.
noise which may not be objectionable during
the day may assume annoying proportions in
the silence of the night when quiet
conditions are essential.
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Noise (Based on sound generation)

Air-borne Noise Structure borne Noise

• Transmitted by air and atmosphere such as
the radio, people carrying on conversations
etc. When sound waves traveling through
the air reach a building element they hit it
and cause it to vibrate. These vibrations can
travel through the structure or building and
are radiated out the other side.
• Transmitted when sound arises from the
actual impact of an object on a building
element such as a wall, floor or ceiling.
• Structure-borne sound occurs because the
impact causes both sides of the building
element to vibrate, generating sound waves.
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Noise Reduction/Control
One of the important considerations for acoustical comfort is to prevent or minimize
the unwanted sound (noise).
There are four major actions which can be taken to improve noise compatibility for any
type of land use or activity. These are site planning, architectural design, construction
methods, and barrier construction.

Acoustical site design uses the arrangement of buildings on a tract of land to minimize
noise impacts by capitalizing on the site’s natural shape and contours. Open space,
nonresidential land uses, and barrier buildings can be arranged to shield residential
areas or other noise sensitive activities from noise, and residences can be oriented
away from noise.

Acoustical architectural design incorporates noise reducing concepts in the details of

individual buildings. The areas of architectural concern include building height, room
arrangement, window placement, and balcony and courtyard design.
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Acoustical construction involves the use of building materials and techniques to

reduce noise transmission through walls, windows, doors, ceilings, and floors. This
area includes many of the new and traditional “soundproofing” concepts.

Noise barriers can be erected between noise sources and noise-sensitive areas.
Barrier types include berms made of sloping mounds of earth, walls and fences
constructed of a variety of materials, thick plantings of trees and shrubs, and
combinations of these materials.
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Acoustical Site Planning

Many site planning techniques can be employed to shield a residential development

from noise. These can include:
• increasing the distance between the noise source and the receiver
• placing non-residential land uses such as parking lots, maintenance facilities, and
utility areas between the source and the receiver
• locating barrier-type buildings parallel to the noise source or the highway
• orienting the residences away from the noise.

Distance: Noise can be effectively reduced by

increasing the distance between a residential
building and a highway. Distance itself reduces
sound: doubling the distance from a noise source
can reduce its intensity by as much as 6 dB. This is
effective in case of high rise buildings as other
means of buffer can be ineffective for higher floors.
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Acoustical Site Planning

Noise Compatible Land Uses as Buffers: Noise protection can be achieved by locating
noise-compatible land uses between the highway and residential units. Whenever
possible, compatible uses should be nearest the noise source.
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Buildings as Noise Shields: Additional noise protection can be achieved by arranging
the site plan to use buildings as noise barriers. A long building, or a row of buildings
parallel to a highway can shield other more distant structures or open areas from
noise. Eg: MLCPs
Orientation: The orientation of buildings or activities on a site affects the impact of
noise, and the building or activity area may be oriented in such a way as to reduce this
impact.
Buildings can also be oriented on a site in
such a way as to exploit the site’s natural
features. With reference to noise, natural
topography can be exploited and buildings
placed in low noise pockets if they exist. If
no natural noise pockets exist, it is
possible to create them by excavating
pockets for buildings and piling up earth
mounds between them and the noise.
Such a structure would obstruct the sound
paths and reduce the noise impacts on
the residences.
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Acoustical Architectural Design
Acoustical considerations in the planning of room arrangement, placement of
windows, building height, balconies, and courtyards contributes to significant noise
impact reduction.
Room Arrangement: Noise impacts can be substantially reduced by separating more
noise sensitive rooms from less noise sensitive rooms; and placing the former in the
part of the building which is furthest away from the noise source. The less sensitive
rooms should then be placed closest to the noise source where they can act as noise
buffers for the more sensitive rooms.

BR BR LR

PLAY BATH KIT DR

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Acoustical Architectural Design

Solid Walls: Noise can be reduced by eliminating windows and other openings from
the walls of a building close to noise sources. The solid wall can then have the effect of
a sound barrier for the rest of the building. When a solid wall is impractical, illegal, or
highly undesirable; the same effect can be achieved by reducing window size and
sealing windows airtight.

One Story Houses: In cases where either

the house or the highway is slightly
recessed or a barrier has been placed in
the sound path, the noise impact may be
further reduced if the house has only one
floor
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Acoustical Architectural Design
Balconies: If balconies are desired they should be given
acoustical consideration. The standard jutting balcony, facing the
road, may reflect traffic noise directly into the interior of the
building

Courtyards: Proper architectural design

may also provide for noise reduction in an
area outside of the building. The court
garden and patio houses can provide
outdoor acoustical privacy
 Acoustics 2
Acoustical Construction & Materials
Noise can be intercepted as it passes through the walls, floors, windows, ceilings, and
doors of a building.
When sound wave travels through air or materials, the transmitted Sound Pressure
Level is reduced due to sound power loss. Almost every material exhibits sound
insulating properties. They only vary in their level of acoustic performance, which is
measured in terms of the Sound Transmission Loss or Sound Reduction Index.

Sound absorbing materials used are rated using Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC),
which is basically a type of average of sound absorption coefficients from 250 Hz to 2
kHz, the primary speech frequency range. From perfectly absorptive (NRC = 1.0) to
perfectly reflective (NRC = 0.0) NRC theoretically ranges.
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Acoustical Construction
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Acoustical Construction
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Acoustical Materials
Porous materials obtained from synthetic fibers, such as mineral wool or glass wool,
are commonly used for thermal insulation and sound absorption, because of their high
performance and low cost. Their diffuse-field sound absorption coefficient is very high
at mid-high frequencies.
Effectiveness of absorption is directly related to the thickness
of the material; absorbers are most effective when their
thickness is between one-fourth and one-half the wavelength
of the sound, with the maximum performance where the
thickness is one-fourth the wavelength. This means that
sound absorbers do a very good job at high frequencies, which
have short wavelengths
Acoustics 3 – Material Absorption Coefficient & Noise Reduction Criteria
Absorption Coefficient
The sound absorbing quality of a surface and to quantify the proportion of incident
sound energy that does not return to the room in the form of a reflection. The higher
the value, the more sound is absorbed (turned to heat within the material) or
transmitted (passed through the material) and the less is reflected; the lower the
value, the more sound is reflected and the less is absorbed or transmitted.
Absorption coefficient (α) is expressed as a value between 0 & 1.
The Absorption coefficient of an open window is 1 (as no sound incident on open
window is reflected back) & absorption coefficient

Absorptive Materials Reflective Materials

Porous Dense
Non-Smooth Smooth
Light-weight Heavy
Thick Flush Mounted
Mounted over air-space
Higher α values are characterized by a fiber orientation that constructs multitudes of
tiny interconnecting air pockets
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Absorptive & reflective Materials

A ceiling tile may have an absorption coefficient of

0.80 at 1,000 Hz, and an absorption coefficient of 0.32
at 125 Hz.
Many porous materials, absorbent at middle
frequencies (speech frequencies), are more sound
reflective at lower frequencies. Many panelized
assemblies, such as gypsum board over stick
construction, are more sound absorbent in low
frequencies and sound reflective at speech
frequencies.
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Sound spectrum (loudness) & Frequency.

Insert: Audio file 20Hz to 20kHz (Human Audio Spectrum)

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Octave Bands

Hissing noise ‘ssssss…’ of an air-conditioning equipment

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Octave Bands
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Octave Bands Bandwidth
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Octave Bands
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Absorption Coefficient
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Porous Absorbers (Wall Mounted)
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Porous Absorbers (Wall Mounted)

Common examples: Glass fiber, mineral fiber, fiberboard, acoustical ceiling tile, cotton,
pressed wood shavings oriented to foster pores, felt, and open-celled foams.

Their absorption coefficients generally rise with frequency, yet they are the most
broadband of the absorber types and are therefore by far the most commonly
specified to acoustically dampen a room.
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Porous Absorbers (Ceiling Mounted)
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Porous Absorbers (Ceiling Mounted)
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Porous Absorbers (Ceiling Mounted)
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Panel Absorbers
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Types of Sound Absorbers – Panel Absorbers
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Room Constant
Total absorption of a room is called Room Constant. Sound absorption is not only a
function of absorption coefficient of the surface but also depends on the surface area
of the absorbent material.
A room constant = α1s1 + α2s2 + α3s3+….+ αnsn
Where A is the total absorption in the room, termed as the “room constant” and
measured in sabins,
α1 is the absorption coefficient of the first surface, α2 is the absorption coefficient of
the second surface, α3 is the absorption coefficient of the third surface, and so on.
s1 is the area of the first surface, s2 is the area of the second surface, s3 is the area of
the third surface, and so on
Room Average Absorption

Room average absorption is an area-weighted coefficient which is represented as the

Room Constant per Surface area (of the absorbent surfaces)
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Numerical 1.
Calculate the total room absorption at 1,000 Hz of a small office with 10 sqm of
wood floor (α1 = 0.06) and 50 sqm of gypsum board (α2 = 0.04)

A room constant = α1s1 + α2s2 + α3s3+….+ αnsn

A room constant = (10x0.06)+(50x0.04)

= 2.6 Sabins
Suppose that the gypsum board in the office is replaced with a highly absorptive
material (α2 = 0.90) , what will be the difference in total room absorption?
A room constant = (10x0.06)+(50x0.90)
= 45.6 Sabins
Suppose that a partial partition wall of gypsum board (α2 = 0.06) of 20sqm is added
to the office, then
A room constant = (10x0.06)+(50x0.90)+(20x0.06)
= 46.8 Sabins
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Noise Reduction Coefficient
Noise Reduction Coefficient is an average rating of how much sound a material can
absorb.
NRC ratings range from 0 to 1. An NRC of 0 means that the product absorbs no sound.
An NRC of 1 means that the product absorbs all sound. The higher the NRC, the better
the product is at soaking up sound.
This value can be found by averaging the sound absorption coefficients in the four
octave bands 250 Hz through 2,000 Hz, then rounding off to the nearest 0.05.
 Acoustics 3 – Room Acoustics
Room Acoustics
 Acoustics 3 – Room Acoustics
Room Acoustics
 Acoustics 3 – Room Acoustics
Room Acoustics – Reverberation & Amplification

For unamplified sound, the desired reverberance is a function of the balance of

speech‐to‐music planned for the room, with speech requiring less reverberance to
maintain intelligibility, and music requiring more reverberance to maintain a quality
called “fullness.”

In amplified speech or music, generally less reverberance is desired because (a)

reflecting amplified sound can more easily muddy the effect and (b) if reverberance is
desired, it can be easily added digitally to the recorded track or live feed.

Amplification is the increasing of the strength or intensity of the sound wave.

Sounds can be made louder or amplified in a number of ways.
1. Providing more energy for sound generation eg: beating a drum
with vigour, shouting with bodily energy.
2. Electrical amplifier can provide the additional energy eg:
Microphone & Speaker assembly.
3. Funnelling the ears. Eg: Ear trumpets
4. Acoustical impedance matching eg: Acoustical Guitar
 Acoustics 3 – Room Acoustics
Room Acoustics – Reverberation Time

Time (in seconds) required for sound in a space to decay (once it is abruptly stopped)
by some fixed decibel value is reverberation time. Sabine’s formula measures the
reverberation time as time taken by sound to decay by 60dB.

The empirical relationship between the volume of the space, the amount of absorptive
material within the space and the reverberation time is termed as Sabine’s Formula.

RT=0.161V
A
Where, RT = Reverberation time
V = volume of space in m3
A=Total Absorption of space in m2-sabins (Absorption Coefficient)

The constant 0.161 is an inverse log factor of speed of sound, and has a unit of seconds
per meter.
 Acoustics 3 – Room Acoustics
Room Acoustics – Reverberation Time

Numerical 3:
Calculate the RT60 of a classroom with length 10m, width 5m and height 4m. Wall are
covered with a material having α1=0.35, ceiling with material having α2=0.60 and floor
with material having α3=0.15. (consider the wall openings covered with same material
as wall and all opening are perfectly closed as the time of calculation)

RT=0.161V
A

A room constant = α1s1 + α2s2 + α3s3+….+ αnsn

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Optimal Reverberation Time

2 to 2.25 seconds can be considered an optimal reverberation time for a concert hall,
around 1 second was optimal for a lecture hall and around 0.5 seconds for a
classroom.

Boston Symphony Hall = 1.8 sec Carnegie Hall in New York City= 1.7 sec
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Optimal Reverberation Time
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Auditorium/Theatre/Hall Design

Halls used for speech and/or drama: Speech intelligibility is essential. Optimum clarity
depends upon:
•Correct reverberation time
•Absence of echo
•Correct loudness level at all parts of the hall, and
•Low background noise
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Auditorium/Theatre/Hall Design

Halls used for Music: Optimum reverberation time to lend proper blending and
fullness of music.

Halls used for Cinemas: In view of the fact that a certain amount of reverberation is
already present in the recorded sound, the reverberation time required is lower than
that for music.
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Auditorium Design

1. Site Location and planning

2. Layouts and seats

• Stage
• Rear wall
• Side wall
• Roof & Ceiling

3. Ancillary services
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Auditorium Design

Site Location and planning

Avoid the noise or provide adequate insulation to the structure

The quietest possible condition should be provided so that intelligibility of speech does
not suffer and even soft passages of music are heard.

Depending on the ambient noise level of the site, orientation, layout and structural
design should be arranged to provide necessary noise reduction, so that the
background noise level of not more than 40 to 45 dB is achieved within the hall
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Auditorium Design

Layout & Seats – Size & shape

Shape of auditorium shall be provided considering the proximity of audience to the
source of sound

This can be achieved through Fan-shaped layout. In large auditoriums, a

balcony/gallery may me provided to bring more seats closer to the sound source.
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Auditorium Design

Layout & Seats – Size & shape