The Effect of Design Changes on Sound Transmission through a Building

A statistical energy analysis model of a building was used to assess the effect of design changes on sound transmission. Systematic changes were made to the material properties (density, Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio and internal loss factor) and to the dimensions (thickness and room size).

These changes resulted in a redistribution of the energy throughout the building causing the noise level to go up in some rooms and to go down in others. For each case examined it was found that the effect of several changes could be estimated from the sum of the individual changes. Thus a change of 20% in the density resulted in approximately double the change in D_nTwthat was obtained from a 10% change in density. The same additive effect was also found to apply if more than one variable was changed at the same time. Thus the change in D_nTwresulting from a small change in Young's modulus for the floors and a small change in the density of the walls can be estimated from the sum of the two individual effects.

Changes to the thickness and density of the walls and floors have the greatest effect on sound transmission whilst changes to Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio have a much smaller effect. Damping can also have a significant effect on transmission particularly far from the source.