INTERIOR

ENVIRONMENTAL
ANALYSIS

PRESENTATION 07
ACOUSTICS
 What is acoustics?
• Acoustics deals with the production, control, transmission, reception
and effects of sound.
• In interior design, we are concerned with the control of sound in
interior spaces. More specifically, we want to preserve and enhance
desired sounds and reduce or eliminate sounds that would interfere
with our activities.

Occurrence of sound:
• Sound occurs when energy is transmitted as pressure waves through
the air or another medium.
• A sound wave travels outward spherically from its source until it
encounters an obstacle in its path. When a sound wave strikes an
object, it is either absorbed or reflected, or a combination of the two.
• In a room, we first hear a sound directly from its source and then a
series of reflections of that sound.
• Reflective surfaces are useful when they reinforce desirable sound by
directing and distributing their paths in a room.
• The continued presence of reflected sounds, however, can cause
problems of echo, flutter, or reverberation.
Principles of acoustics
 What is an echo and a flutter?
• Echoes occur in large spaces when surfaces reflect sound waves that
are loud enough and received late enough to be perceived as distinct
from the source. In smaller rooms, parallel reflective surfaces can
cause a rapid succession of echoes, which we call flutter.

What is reverberation?
• Reverberation refers to the persistence of a sound within a space,
caused by multiple reflections of the sound after the source has
stopped.
• Some music is enhanced with long reverberation times, but speech
can become muddled in such an acoustic environment.
• Altering the shape and orientation of a room's surfaces or adjusting
the proportion of reflective and absorbent materials can aid sound
clarity.

Acoustical Design:
• The requirements for sound level, reverberation time and resonance
vary with the nature of the activity and the types of sounds generated.
• An acoustical engineer can determine the acoustical requirements for
a space.
• The interior designer should be aware of how the selection and
disposition of reflective and absorbent materials affect the acoustical
qualities of a room.
Measuring sound:
• Decibel (dB) is a unit expressing the relative pressure or Intensity
of sounds on a uniform scale, from 0 for the least perceptible
sound to about 130 for the average threshold of pain.
• Because decibel measurement is based on a logrithmic scale, the
decibel levels of two sound sources cannot be added
mathematically. For example, 60dB + 60 dB= 63 dB, not 120 dB.
• A sone is a unit for measuring the apparent loudness of a sound.

Noise
We refer to unwanted, annoying, or discordant sounds as noise.
Noise from outside of a space can be controlled in the following ways:
• Isolate the noise at its source.
• locate noisy areas as far away as possible from quiet areas.
• Reduce the transmission of sound from one space to another.
Isolating sound:
• Sound can be transmitted through air as well as through the solid
materials of a building's structure.
• As structure-borne sounds are difficult to control, they should be
isolated at their source whenever possible.

• Strategies include using quieter mechanical equipment, using resilient

mountings and flexible connections to isolate equipment vibrations from
the building structure, and eliminating flanking paths along
interconnecting ductwork or piping that the noise can take from its source
to the space.
What is a resilient material?
• Resilience generally means the ability to recover from some shock
or disturbance.
• Resilience of a material: the physical property of material that can
resume its shape after being stretched or deformed (elasticity).

Noise reduction:
Background or ambient sound from both exterior and interior sources is
normally present in an environment. The required noise reduction from
one space to another depends on, the level of the sound source and
the level of sound intrusion that may be acceptable to the listener.

Zone activities
according to
sound levels,
isolating quiet
areas from
noisier ones or
separating
them with mass
or distance.
Transmission loss:
Transmission loss (TL) is a measure of the performance of a building
material or construction assembly in preventing the transmission of
airborne sound. Three factors enhance the TL rating of a construction
assembly:
• Mass: In general, the heavier and more dense a body, the greater is
its resistance to sound transmission.
• Separation into layers: Introducing air spaces into the construction
assembly disrupts the path through which sound may be transmitted
from one space to another.
• Absorption: Absorptive materials help to dissipate sound in a room.
Sound transmission class:
• A sound transmission class
(STC) rating is a single
number that combines TL
values from many
frequencies.
• The STC provides an
estimate of the performance
of a partition in certain
common sound insulation
situations.
• The higher the STC rating,
the greater is the sound-
isolating value of the material
or construction.
• An open doorway has an
STC rating of 10; normal
construction has STC ratings
from 30 to 60; special
construction is required for
STC ratings above 60.
STC ratings for various partitions
• The sound absorptive qualities
of a material depend on the
thickness, density, porosity and
resistance to airflow.
• Fibrous materials allow the
passage of air while trapping
sound energy and are therefore
often used in acoustic materials as
batts and blankets of fiberglass or
mineral fiber.
• In a normally constructed room
without acoustical treatment, sound
waves strike the wall, ceiling and
floor surfaces, which then transmit
a small portion of the sound to
adjacent spaces. The surfaces
absorb another small amount of
the sound, but most of it is
reflected back into the room.
• Absorptive materials can dissipate some of the incident sound energy and reduce the
portion of sound transmitted. This is particularly helpful in spaces with distributed
noise sources, such as offices, schools and restaurants.
• Reducing reverberation from the ceiling plane is usually the most
effective approach to sound control in a room. Acoustical ceiling tiles are
excellent absorbers of sound. They absorb more sound when mounted in a
suspended ceiling system than when attached directly to a surface.
Perforated metal ceiling panels with acoustic backing and acoustic ceiling
panels made of bonded wood fibers also work well to control noise.
• Treating walls and floors also helps to control sound. Acoustical wall panels
usually have fire-rated fabric coverings.
• Carpet is the only floor finish that absorbs sound. In addition, it can cushion
footfalls and the sounds of furniture movement, thus limiting transmission of
impact noise to the space below.
• The average coefficient of absorption measures how efficiently materials
in a room absorb sound: the lower the rating, the more sound is being
absorbed.
• The sound absorption average (SAA) is the average of sound absorption
coefficients at a range of frequencies. Manufacturers list SAA ratings for
acoustic products; some may use older noise reduction coefficient (NRC)
ratings, which are similar.
Speech privacy:
• Interior designers are often faced with
the need to provide speech privacy in
offices. Combining ceiling and wall
treatments with careful siting of
furnishings help keep sounds from
spreading.

• Office workstations or cubicles also not usually have full height

partitions, and noise can be a problem. Office cubicles often use
acoustical material to absorb some of the sound, but sound often
travels through cubicle openings and over the tops of low walls.
Locating workstations carefully can help to block some of this sound.
• A significant amount of the sound in offices is reflected off the ceiling.
A suspended acoustical tile ceiling will absorb unwanted sound.
Where an open ceiling is desired, acoustical clouds or canopies over
noisy areas will help control sound levels.
• The intrusiveness of overheard speech is related to its intelligibility.
Electronic sound-masking systems can help to reduce the intelligibility
of overheard speech.