The Challenge of Meeting both Acoustic and Thermal Comfort in 21st Century School Classrooms
Regular paper
Saint-Gobain Ecophon AB
Tuesday 2 june, 2015, 09:00 - 09:20
0.9 Athens (118)
Abstract:
The benefits of "thermal mass" in stabilizing temperature for thermal comfort and
reducing building energy consumption for sustainable green buildings are well
documented. However, when exposing the concrete soffit for thermal purposes it is
then not possible to have a fully covered sound absorbing suspended ceiling in
classrooms for acoustic comfort. In turn, this makes it a potential compromise to
achieve good acoustic comfort while still utilizing the thermal mass of the
exposed soffit.
For this paper we measured a classroom configuration with free hanging sound
absorbing units and wall absorbers in comparison to measuring a fully covering
traditional suspended ceiling. We looked into optimising the low frequency
imbalance - a potential negative consequence from not having a full suspended
ceiling - with an enclosed void which can trap the low frequency sound (125Hz)
which can build up and interfere with the important speech frequencies. We looked
at the challenge of optimizing the acoustic coverage range without affecting the
thermal comfort. We also wanted to improve the balance of the potentially negative
low frequencies to support good speech communication and acoustic comfort for all
students and teachers, while also seeing if it is possible to provide an inclusive
acoustic environment for sensitive listeners. Our mission was to make the combined
thermal and acoustic free hanging unit classroom solution perform as close as
possible to a fully covering acoustic solution which optimises acoustic conditions
for all speech and listening activities and is inclusive for sensitive listeners.