Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin

B. Bozzetto has produced plenty of animated shorts on various subjects.

Ill. Bruno Bozetto

This animated short film is dedicated to noise in residential premises.

Hopefully, it doesn’t have to end that way!

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Institute for Research in Construction of the National Research Council of Canada is a well known research centre on acoustics.

The Acoustics Department, headed by John Bradley has been conducting over the years extensive research on open plan acoustics.

Based on the North American "cubicle" layout, the studies address both the mechanisms of sound propagation as fundamentals such as voice levels in open plan offices.

John Bradley is one of the speakers at the Ecophon International Acousticians' Seminar 27th-28th September.

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 10:50 AM | Permalink

In 1999, acoustics expertise (incl. Delta and Carl Bro) was contacted to evaluate, measure and simulate the acoustics of the glass-roofed Sculpture Street at the New Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The "street" is actually courtyard in between the older part of the museum and an extension completed 1998. The extensive use of hard materials in the room (glass, marble, plaster and steel) made the room simply unappropriate to most activities.

The challenge was to bring down the very high reverberation time (more than 10 s!) down to reasonable levels. The solutions should be implemented as discreetly as possible.

An extensive refurbishment and acoustical upgrade of the premises was conducted in 2003, ending up in a reverberation time of less than 3 s. The courtyard can now be used for lectures and music performance.

Listen and judge!

Before refurbishment (more than 10 s)

After refurbishment (less than 3 s)

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 11:17 PM | Permalink

ECOTECT v5. is now launched.

Illustration: Square 1/ECOTECT

The software is developed by Square 1. It has been existing for some years but will be from this version more actively commercialised.

One of the important features of the software is the visualisation of sound, either as sound rays or particles.

Other functions are:
- Statistical Reverberation
- Sprayed Acoustic Rays
- Animated Sound Particles
- Reflector Coverage
etc

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 5:29 PM | Permalink

BB77 is meant to be guidance for school design edited by the British government. It addresses the inclusive aspects of school facilities, meaning their capacity to accommodate pupils with special needs.
The draft is a 293 page document, applying to all schools whether “special” or not.

Facts and figures
- pupils are regarded as having hearing impairment if they require hearing aids, adaptations to their environment and/or particular teaching strategies in order to access the concepts and language of the curriculum.
- 40% of pupils with a hearing impairment also have an additional disability or learning difficulty.
- most pupils with hearing impairment are included in mainstream schools.

Acoustic design guidelines provided by BB77
- “A high-quality acoustic environment should be a priority, with good-quality room acoustics for speech intelligibility and sound insulation to ensure low background noise.“

- “Avoid noise interference from highly reflective or highly reverberant surfaces, such as wood-block floors, hard-plastered walls, ceramic tiling or glass blocks.”

- “Sound absorbers should be used in ceilings, upper part of walls and flooring. Walls should be of high mass to reduce noise transfer (…) with sound absorbent finish on their upper part.”

- “A specialist consultant will be needed to advise on the material, shape and construction of the ceiling for music and performance spaces.”

Download the draft >>

Final version of BB77 will be available after edition of results from public consultation at www.teachernet.gov.uk/acoustics

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Acoustical Society of America provides since some years useful literature for classroom acoustic design.

Particularly, the Classroom Acoustics booklet is meant as "an aid in the understanding of the elements of desirable listening conditions in classrooms" (whole content available below cover page picture)

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 12:03 PM | Permalink

Noise reduction in day-care centres by reducing reverberation time: Analyses and case studies is a study conducted on behalf of the Canadian IRSST. The aim of the study is to:
- examine the effects of acoustic materials and their impact on noise reduction and reverberation time.
- give concrete examples of noise reduction obtained through using acoustic treatments in day-care centres;
- develop a simple method in order to assess potential noise reductions by using acoustical treatments.

Based on acoustical measurments in twenty day care centres, solutions combining acoustic ceiling and wall absorbers have been proposed, implemented and validated.
- installation of an acoustic ceiling complying to Absorption Class A, according to EN ISO 11654:1997
- installation of a sixty centimetre band of acoustic panels on the upper part of the walls, also with Absorption Class A.

Highlights
- the treatement lead to an average reduction in noise levels of approximately 6 to 7 dBA
- part of the reductions obtained were the result of changes in the behaviour of the children and eventually in that of the childcare workers who started to talk more quietly in a less noisy environment.
- a simple formula in order to estimate the noise reductions depending on the acoustic materials installed has been defined

Download the full document (free of charge): http://www.irsst.qc.ca/files/documents/PubIRSST/R-463.pdf

The translation of the report from French was financed by Ecophon.

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 8:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Sound and Vibration", the next Baltic-Nordic Acoustics Meeting 2006 will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 8 – 10 November. A Satellite symposium "Man and Noise" will be held 8 November in co-operation with the Swedish National Institute for Working Life, NIWL.

The conference comprises various sessions, out of which: Room acoustics, Soundscape - support to health and Acoustic and vibration technology development

The Satellite symposium "Man and Noise", gathers lectures on Noise, memory and learning in children, Acoustics and speech communication, Children´s reaction to noise in preschools and Cognitive aspects of speech comprehension in noise.

Complete program

The conference is co-sponsored by Ecophon.

Registration to the conference

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:48 AM | Permalink