{"title":"Enhancing the classroom acoustic environment in Badr University, Egypt: A case study","authors":"Ahmed M. Selim, Doha M. Saeed","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221119381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221119381","url":null,"abstract":"The acoustic environment of the classroom is deemed significant to enhance the learning quality and the learning outcomes. Noise exposure levels and reverberation are the main acoustic parameters to consider in the classroom because it affects speech intelligibility. As a result of the modern teaching methods especially in the practical faculties. Workgroup activities have become a common tool for learning, it has a higher noise level than independent work. Therefore, the specialists become face a great challenge to achieve acoustic comfort in classrooms. In spite of that, in Egypt, acoustic conditions are rarely implemented into classroom design practice. This study evaluated the acoustic performance of a typical classroom in Badr University, Egypt in unoccupied condition for four cases. Unoccupied ambient noise level (ANLs) and reverberation time (RTs) were measured by using Testo 815 device, and Ecotect software. Additionally, the measurements were compared with the standards and norms. Acoustic treatments using absorbent materials were suggested by simulation in Ecotect for three cases (four scenarios).","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"577 - 596"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47035761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A scoping review of the effects of classroom acoustic conditions on primary school children’s mental wellbeing","authors":"Kiri Mealings","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221117899","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221117899","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this scoping review was to systematically map research on the effect of classroom acoustic conditions on children’s mental wellbeing and identify existing gaps in knowledge to inform future research. This scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR protocol. A comprehensive search of four online databases (ERIC, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) was conducted using the search term classroom AND (acoustic* OR noise OR reverb*) AND (“mental health” OR emotion OR wellbeing OR “quality of life” OR anxiety OR depression). Peer-reviewed papers were included if they were written in English, included children in the primary school age range (i.e. 5–12 years), and included a measure of children’s mental wellbeing. Six papers met the criteria to be included in the review. Overall, this review suggests that poor classroom acoustic conditions can negatively affect children’s mental wellbeing. Given the small number of studies, future research suggestions are proposed to fill current gaps in knowledge.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"529 - 542"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49116214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. L. Benferhat, Samira Debache Benzagouta, A. Bouttout, F. Martellotta
{"title":"Acoustical characterization of three Ottoman masjids built in Algeria","authors":"M. L. Benferhat, Samira Debache Benzagouta, A. Bouttout, F. Martellotta","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221113000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221113000","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims at evaluating the acoustical quality of historical Ottoman masjids in Algeria. Measurements were carried out according to current international standards, allowing calculation of acoustical parameters including reverberation time, speech transmission index and Clarity. Three Ottoman masjids located in Algiers (Jedid, Ali-Bitchin, and Safir) were selected. The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the acoustics of the prayer hall in relation to its worship use, assuming as a reference studies of existing masjids. Results showed that two of three worship spaces are generally reverberant under unoccupied conditions (with mid frequency reverberation times of about 3 s), while the other has reverberation time of about 1 s at medium frequencies. Speech intelligibility under unoccupied conditions is between poor and fair for Jedid and Ali-Bitchin masjids, while in Safir masjid values were generally above 0.6. Presence of architectural elements made C50 values quite scattered and characterized by a clear non-symmetrical distribution. Calculations to consider the effect of occupancy were also performed, resulting in significantly drier acoustics with improved clarity.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"481 - 501"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47668410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Acoustical optimization of mufflers hybridized with spiral perforated tubes using finite element method, Artificial Neural Network, and Genetic Algorithm","authors":"M. Chiu, Ying-Chun Chang","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221109995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221109995","url":null,"abstract":"Because venting noise emitted from high pressure valve often occurred in industry and is huge, the noise abatement of the venting noise to protect human’s hearing health is necessary. In order to depress the high speed noise, a muffler internally equipped with spiral perforated tube is presented. To mitigate this noise, a dissipative muffler with perforated spiral tube installed on the pipeline is proposed. To evaluate the acoustical performance, a finite element method using COMSOL software is adopted. Also, the sensitivity analyses of Transmission Loss (TL) of the proposed muffler with respect to (1) diameter of the spiral and perforated tube (D), (2) pitch of the spiral tube (L), (3) acoustical impedance of the dissipative acoustic material (R), and (4) perforation rate of a perforated tube (σ) has been carried out. For the optimization studies, both Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize the muffler parameters L and D are applied. Here, two high target frequencies (2000 and 3500 Hz) to optimize the proposed muffler are exemplified. Consequently, the hybrid design of perforated spiral tube optimized using ANN and GA will mitigate the high pressure valve noise efficiently.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"459 - 479"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46898002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Samantha Di Loreto, Fabio Serpilli, Valter Lori, C. di Perna
{"title":"The influence of the acoustic performance in the certification of a school buildings according to the ITACA protocol","authors":"Samantha Di Loreto, Fabio Serpilli, Valter Lori, C. di Perna","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221109763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221109763","url":null,"abstract":"The study and analysis of the processes that determine environmental sustainability of buildings are nowadays topics of great interest for the sustainable, economic and social development of the cities. The international context presents guidelines and protocols for the energy-environmental sustainability, often aimed to assigning a sustainability label to the buildings. In Italy one of the most used rating systems is the ITACA Protocol, recently updated by the Italian Standard UNI/Pdr 2019, which through a series of criteria identifies global indicators of the sustainability of the building examined. This paper presents the potential of the ITACA protocol which could be a method for designing innovative and efficient architectures. In particular, the aspects related to the acoustic comfort are examined and how these criteria change the overall performance of a building. The evaluation of the sustainability performance was applied to a school building. Results show that an optimal acoustic quality improve over to 2 point of the final protocol score.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"559 - 575"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42374611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
R. Maderuelo-Sanz, F. J. García-Cobos, F. Sánchez-Delgado
{"title":"Study of the acoustic performance of composites made from recycled cellulose acetate and polymer waste","authors":"R. Maderuelo-Sanz, F. J. García-Cobos, F. Sánchez-Delgado","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221103677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221103677","url":null,"abstract":"The main objective of this study is to evaluate the acoustic behaviour of composites made by mixing cellulose acetate, from recycled cigarette butts, with polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene, from recycled plastic containers and surgical masks, respectively. For this purpose, the spectra of the measured sound absorption coefficients and the calculated NRC and SAA indices of samples with thicknesses of 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6 and 7.5 cm are analysed. The results of both experiments reveal that the studied composites present a sound absorption capacity comparable to that of fibre glass and rock wool, being even more efficient for thicknesses greater than 4.5 cm. Moreover, the acoustical properties of the composites are predicted using the Miki model over the frequency range from 100 to 6400 Hz, showing very accurate predictions of the sound absorption spectrum at normal incidence.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"445 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47293227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Peceño, EM Perez-Soriano, José D. Ríos, Y. Luna-Galiano, H. Cifuentes, Carlos Leiva Fernández
{"title":"Morphological analysis of porosity and sound absorption in sustainable materials from rice husk","authors":"B. Peceño, EM Perez-Soriano, José D. Ríos, Y. Luna-Galiano, H. Cifuentes, Carlos Leiva Fernández","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221103674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221103674","url":null,"abstract":"This study proposes a composite material that incorporates rice husk. This research focuses on an experimental analysis of the physical, mechanical and acoustic performance of composite materials made of rice-husk waste. Various ratios of rice husk/resins have been employed. Complementary, X-ray computed tomography technique has been used to characterise a representative and extensive volume of material at the pore level, ranging from pore sizes of 100 μm to several millimetres Furthermore, detailed information of key factors of pore properties inside the matrix (pore size, sphericity, position, tortuosity and permeability) has been provided. All the compositions present high sound-absorption coefficients, with noise-reduction coefficients ranging from 0.39 to 0.52, and suitable compressive strength (>1 MPa). From the results, when the rice husk/resin ratio was decreased, the pore size fell between 1 and 4 mm, and the permeability reduced; in contrast, the compressive strength increased, although the sound absorption capacity diminished.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"387 - 399"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43307338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Classroom acoustics and cognition: A review of the effects of noise and reverberation on primary school children’s attention and memory","authors":"Kiri Mealings","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221104892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221104892","url":null,"abstract":"Classroom acoustic conditions are often suboptimal, so how do they affect children’s cognition? This review synthesized research assessing the effect of different classroom acoustic conditions on children’s attention and memory. A comprehensive search of four online databases was conducted in January 2022 using the search term classroom AND (noise* OR reverberat* OR acoustic*) AND (cognit* OR attention OR memory OR processing). The results revealed 21 relevant papers plus an additional 10 from their references. The papers assessed the effect of a range of chronic and acute acoustic exposures on different attention and memory processes. Overall, the majority of studies showed a negative effect or no effect of higher noise levels, longer reverberation times, or lower speech clarity on children’s cognition. It would therefore be beneficial to improve classroom acoustic conditions if possible. Suggestions for future research to more fully understand the effect of different classroom acoustic conditions on children’s cognition are posed.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"401 - 431"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42350098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Experimental study of impulse sound transmission between rooms","authors":"N. Kanev, A. Fadeev","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221101466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221101466","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents experimental results of a study of the sound transmission between two rooms in one of which an intensive short impulse is radiated. The room with the source is treated by a sound absorber to reduce reflections and provide a pure impulse impact on a partition separating the rooms. The influences of the source and receiver positions, acoustic conditions in the receiver room and energy of the impulse are investigated and analyzed. It has been shown that all these factors affect the impulse sound transmission, which is proposed to be described by two coefficients. The first one is a ratio of peak sound pressure values in both rooms, the second one is the similar ratio only for peak-to-peak values. Some results correlate with theoretical assumptions, but the others differ significantly. So, the theoretical approaches to the impulse sound transmission or dynamic transmission loss need to be developed as well as the impulse sound insulation of building elements should be clearly defined and studied.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"331 - 347"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43571190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Timber hollow-box floors: Sound insulation measurement results and analysis","authors":"A. Homb, Simone Conta","doi":"10.1177/1351010X221100604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1351010X221100604","url":null,"abstract":"We performed measurements of the sound reduction index and impact sound pressure level for a range of lightweight floating floors installed on a hollow-box timber floor. The measurements were performed in the laboratory according to the relevant standards. We tested different configurations, varying the cavity filling of the bare floor and the assembly of the lightweight floating floor. We tested floating floors with a continuous elastic layer with high and low dynamic stiffness, floating floors on elastic load-bearing units and a basic vinyl covering of the bare floor. The results show that a wide range of sound insulation can be achieved, making the hollow-box floor elements suitable for different purposes. Best performance is achieved with elastic load-bearing units installed on the bare floor with gravel in the cavity. Detailed analysis of the achievable sound insulation improvement is also given. This shows that reasonably reliable predictions can be made using well-known equations from the literature. Key parameters are the resonance frequency of the system, determined by the mass per unit area of the bare floor and of the floating floor as well as the dynamic stiffness of the resilient layer, and the configuration of the elastic layer. The results and the highlighted prediction equation offer a solid basis to help develop solutions to meet different sound insulation requirements and make the hollow-box floor elements suitable for urban buildings with several purposes, ranging from office/commercial to educational and residential.","PeriodicalId":51841,"journal":{"name":"BUILDING ACOUSTICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"367 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48322197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}