Absorption Balcony
Balconies can be a welcomed outdoor area within modern apartment buildings but can easily be acoustically poorly performing, allowing noise from the external world to seep through into a residential space. With space in popular areas at a premium, more apartment buildings are being built close to roads, railway lines and industrial areas meaning they require the use of efficient noise reduction systems in place to combat the increase of external noise sources. Acoustic absorption solutions for exterior applications can provide a reduction in noise pollution with systems reducing noise from the streets or railway as well as preventing conversations held on the balcony being heard by neighbours and pedestrians by reducing noise by 15%.
Attenuated Balcony
Conceived by researchers in Hong Kong as a solution to the Government’s efforts to search for more housing sites inevitably close to various noise sources such as highly trafficked road, the arc-screen design and several enhanced acoustic balconies were tested in a 3-storey full-scale mock-up building in Dongguan, China. Road traffic noise was simulated by an array of loudspeakers and to test the noise reduction effectiveness on different floors. Several iterations were developed to varying scales of success with researchers eventually adopting the enhanced acoustic balcony featuring a solid balcony parapet, an inclined glass panel, extended side walls, noise absorptive linings on the side walls and balcony ceiling.
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