Engineering Acoustics

12Noise and Vibration Control in Buildings

12.1 Introduction

Buildings are very complex mechanical structures and are subjected to many external and internal sources of noise and vibration. The requirements of lightweight construction in new buildings have made these buildings more susceptible to noise and vibration‐related problems. Thus, occupants frequently complain about the levels of noise and vibration they experience. Internal sources of noise and vibration in modern buildings are mechanical equipments, such as roof‐mounted heating, ventilation, and air‐conditioning (HVAC) units, boilers and elevators. The building occupants themselves produce noise in many ways (e.g. speaking with loud voices and their footsteps). In this chapter, we will start discussing the transmission of airborne sound through structures such as walls and floors. Sound transmission is of concern in many different noise problems, although the transmission of sound through walls of buildings is the topic which seems to have received the most attention. This is not surprising since in buildings (houses, multifamily apartments, and industrial buildings) we are mainly concerned with reducing the sound transmitted from one room to another. However, with the continued mechanization of transportation and other equipment, we are becoming more and more concerned with keeping exterior noise out of buildings (sometimes known as noise “immission”) – e.g. from surface transportation vehicles (mainly road traffic), ...