Modelling the Acoustical and Airflow Performance of Simple Lined Ventilation Apertures

The pressure differences that can be used to drive a natural ventilation system are very small and thus large apertures are required to allow sufficient air to enter and leave a building to ensure good air quality or thermal comfort. Large apertures are potential acoustic weak points on a façade and may require some form of acoustic treatment such as absorbent linings, in which case the ventilator is similar to a short section of lined duct. In ducts, the performance of absorbent linings increases with the length of lining and the ratio of the length of lined perimeter to the cross sectional area of the duct. Thus, for a duct of a given cross sectional area, a lining is more effective for a duct with a high aspect ratio than for a duct with a square cross section. However, the high aspect ratio cross section will result in greater flow resistance and impede the airflow performance. In this paper numerical methods are employed to investigate the effect of different configurations of a lined aperture on the acoustical and ventilation performance of the aperture in order to establish the optimum configurations.