Building Services Engineering 5th Edition Handbook

14 Room acoustics
Learning objectives
Study of this chapter will enable the reader to:
1. know the potential sources of sound and vibration within buildings;
2. know what is meant by noise;
3. understand how sound travels through a building;
4. understand what is meant by sound pressure wave, sound power level and sound
pressure level;
5. know how to calculate sound pressure levels for normal building services design
examples;
6. use sound levels at the range of frequencies commonly used in building services
engineering;
7. understand how sound and vibration are transmitted through buildings;
8. be able to identify the need for sound attenuation vibration isolation;
9. understand and use the decibel unit of measurement of sound energy;
10. know the meaning and use of direct and reverberant sound fields;
11. calculate the sound pressure level in a plant room, a space adjacent to the plant room,
in the target occupied room and in the external environment outside the plant room;
12. use logarithms to base 10 in acoustic calculations;
13. understand the principle of sound absorption;
14. calculate the sound absorption constant for a room at different frequencies;
15. know the sound absorption coefficients for some common building materials and
constructions;
16. understand and use reverberation time and attenuation;
17. calculate sound pressure levels at different frequencies within a plant room;
18. know what a reverberant room and an anechoic chamber are;
19. use directivity index sound absorption coefficients, mean absorption coefficient and
room absorption constant;