Are laboratory tests and prediction models useful in building construction projects?
Invited paper
EVA-International
Tuesday 2 june, 2015, 10:00 - 10:20
0.1 London (90)
Abstract:
The EN12354 calculation method is widely used for air born noise insulation and impact noise predictions. Material properties tested in laboratories are used as input. But, what is the reliability of the product information given by the manufacturers and suppliers of these materials? It is known that the same products tested in different laboratories yield different results. Is this in practice a problem? Or is the difference between the laboratory setup and the in situ application more important. There is a big competition between manufactures of resilient layers. They throw easily with ∆L values and official test reports to show that their products are in compliance with the requirements in the bidding documents. The same can be told for the manufactures of wall materials. The doors suppliers know that the door insulation measured in laboratory are difficult to be compared with in situ tests. What is the effect of all these parameters and uncertainties, combined with the limits of the prediction method on the final acoustic results in a building? What to do when a building promoter and a contractor want to invest as little as possible in acoustics and still comply with the legal acoustic limits? This paper describes the enormous discrepancy between the academic acoustic information and the real life application. Measurement results will be presented and general guidelines will be given.