MSc
- Senior Scientist
SINTEF
Building and Infrastructure
Materials
and Structures
P.O.
Box 124, Blindern, NO - 0314 Oslo, Norway
Phone:
+47 22 96 57 23, Fax: +47 22 96 57 25
E-mail:
sigurd.hveem@sintef.no
Web:
www.sintef.no/byggforsk
SINTEF Building and Infrastructure has
since 2008 worked on a large R&D project for a group consisting of the
Norwegian pollution control autority (Statens forurensningstilsyn, SFT), the
Norwegian public roads administration (Vegdirektoratet), the Norwegian national rail administration
(Jernbaneverket), the Civil Aviation Administration (Avinor)/ Oslo Airport (OSL)
and the Norwegian Defence States Agency (Forsvarsbygg).
The project is dealing with further
development and quality assurance of the database connected to the calculation
method in SINTEF Building and Infrastructure Handbook 47 “Insulation against
external noise – Calculation method and database”. This is all a part of a
process for transition of the Handbook 47 into an electronic, internet version
where we at the same time update and qualify all the input data for the exposed
parts of the building. This will be electronically published through SINTEF
Building Knowledge System (BKS) / SINTEF Building Research Design Guides and,
the series which is the most used planning and design tool amongst Norwegian
architects and engineers. In parallel we cooperate with SINTEF Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) where construction data from our database shall
be accessible for their additional calculation program “Støybygg”. This program
makes it possible when using prediction tools for estimating external noise
levels from road traffic, railroad traffic, airports and industry plants, also
to calculate indoor noise levels as an additional program module.
The database in Handbook 47 (mainly from
1999) consists of data for outer walls, windows, ventilation outlets and roofs.
The calculation method was originally developedin 1988 by SINTEF Building and
Infrastructure and is accordance with NS-EN 12354-3 (2000) Building acoustics -
Estimation of acoustic performance of buildings from the performance of
elements - Part 3: Airborne sound insulation against outdoor sound.
We are now in a middle of a process
where we are performing a number of new laboratory tests in order to secure
that the data in the database are of a good quality. At the same time we are
completing the database with data for constructions that are not sufficiently
covered up to day. The selection of need for new data has been done in
cooperation with the acoustic consultants in Norway. One of the reasons for
focusing on an “official” database with qualified data is that the authorities
being responsible for financing rehabilitation of buildings exposed to high
noise levels, wants to secure that all are evaluated in an equal manner.
We have now completed the measurements
for windows and ventilation outlets. Later we hope to get financial support for
the measurements of outer walls and roofs. In this presentation we will give an
overview of the calculation method including some standard reference noise
spectra for road traffic, railroad traffic and aircraft traffic. We will also
focus on some interesting results from the latest measurements of windows and
of ventilating outlets.
Concerning the windows, one main target
in this project has been to establish data for typically windows with different
degree of air leakages. This is especially important when one shall estimate
the indoor noise levels for existing building and further evaluate the need for
renovation.
Concerning the ventilating outlets we
have found errors in some product data for sound reduction of common used
products, overestimating the high-frequency damping due to wrong mounting in
the test laboratories. We have during the last years also completed the data
for ordinary, un-dampened ventilation outlets for the same reason as mentioned
above for the windows. At the same time we have focused on data both for closed
and open ventilator outlets because the procedure for estimating indoor noise
level of existing building according to the requirements by the authorities
assumes closed ventilation outlets.