A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Façade Elements for Natural Ventilation and Sound Insulation
The indoor environmental comfort requires nowadays the pursuit of architectural alternatives with less energy demand. In hot and humid climates, natural ventilation is one of the design strategies that can be applied to reduce energy consumption in buildings. According to this vision, elements with apertures (cobogó or combogó, as they are popularly known in northeastern Brazil) are architectural elements that provide permanent natural ventilation, sun protection and natural lighting. However, there are acoustic problems associated with the sound insulation that they provide. The present study had the goal of developing elements with apertures to mitigate the conflict between the thermal-acoustic comfort demands. The sound insulation performance of the elements was evaluated in situ according to the ISO 140–5 standard. The natural ventilation characteristics of the elements were investigated by means of computer simulations, using methods of computational fluid dynamics – CFD. Four types of elements had been proposed, which were acoustically evaluated in different mounts on a wall-like facade. The results showed how difficult is to control the transmission of sound at low frequencies in facades with apertures, however, satisfactory sound insulation results were obtained with one type of mounting, which gave an Weighted Standardized Level Difference Dnt, w value of 27 dB. The CFD simulations show that because of its geometrical characteristics, this mounting also provides the best flow conditions for internal natural ventilation, despite the fact that its % of open area of 12% is not the highest amongst the proposed elements. Calculated values of measures of comfort ventilation show that the mountings with the best sound insulation characteristics are also capable of providing adequate values of ventilation ratios and air changes per hour in the test suite that was used for measuring sound insulation.
Façade Elements for Natural Ventilation and Sound Insulation
The indoor environmental comfort requires nowadays the pursuit of architectural alternatives with less energy demand. In hot and humid climates, natural ventilation is one of the design strategies that can be applied to reduce energy consumption in buildings. According to this vision, elements with apertures (cobogó or combogó, as they are popularly known in northeastern Brazil) are architectural elements that provide permanent natural ventilation, sun protection and natural lighting. However, there are acoustic problems associated with the sound insulation that they provide. The present study had the goal of developing elements with apertures to mitigate the conflict between the thermal-acoustic comfort demands. The sound insulation performance of the elements was evaluated in situ according to the ISO 140–5 standard. The natural ventilation characteristics of the elements were investigated by means of computer simulations, using methods of computational fluid dynamics – CFD. Four types of elements had been proposed, which were acoustically evaluated in different mounts on a wall-like facade. The results showed how difficult is to control the transmission of sound at low frequencies in facades with apertures, however, satisfactory sound insulation results were obtained with one type of mounting, which gave an Weighted Standardized Level Difference Dnt, w value of 27 dB. The CFD simulations show that because of its geometrical characteristics, this mounting also provides the best flow conditions for internal natural ventilation, despite the fact that its % of open area of 12% is not the highest amongst the proposed elements. Calculated values of measures of comfort ventilation show that the mountings with the best sound insulation characteristics are also capable of providing adequate values of ventilation ratios and air changes per hour in the test suite that was used for measuring sound insulation.
Façade Elements for Natural Ventilation and Sound Insulation
de Araújo, Bianca C. D. (author) / Bistafa, Sylvio R. (author)
Building Acoustics ; 19 ; 25-43
2012-03-01
19 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Façade Elements for Natural Ventilation and Sound Insulation
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