A Study of Sound Transmission Loss for Building Materials Using Simulative and Experimental Approaches

The sound insulation models that we use in this study are based on theoretical computations and their aim is to reduce time, labor and cost consumption during the calculation of “Sound Transmission Loss (R)” of a particular material experimentally. In this study, for 11 different materials, we compare the performance of various simulation models with the experimental results that are already available in the literature. The experiments were carried out with Bastian, Akuzoft, Insul and dBKAisla model. The analyses were conducted in the standards of ISO 12354, ISO 10140 and ISO 717 in 1/3 octave band. In the models, basic formulas from the literature, computation methods that is necessary to be used in R value calculation for single panels, dimensions of the panels, thickness, density, elasticity module, porosity, internal loss factor belonging to the material and velocity of sound in air have been taken into consideration. In summary, we conducted the simulations with different sound insulation models for the materials whose R values correspond to particular frequencies that have been calculated using experimental work. Comparing the results, effectiveness of each model has been calculated in terms of R and “Weighted Sound Reduction Index (Rw)”.