Rooms and buildings
This section covers sound in the built environment, and it splits along a natural line: what happens inside one room, and what passes between rooms. Inside a room, the governing quantity is absorption: it sets the reverberation time and the clarity that room acoustics measures (ISO 3382) and predicts (Sabine and its refinements, EN 12354-6), while the background noise the room settles into is rated against criterion curves (ANSI/ASA S12.2). Between rooms, the governing quantity is insulation: how much airborne and impact sound a partition and its flanking paths transmit, measured in the field (ISO 16283) or the laboratory (ISO 10140) and predicted from element data (EN 12354).
Both halves consume coefficients measured elsewhere: the Materials and surfaces section characterises the absorption, impedance and scattering data that the room and insulation predictions here rely on.
Start with Room Acoustics: the impulse response it acquires and the parameters it derives are the vocabulary the rest of the section speaks. If your interest is insulation, read Field Insulation Measurement and Ratings next; if it is design-stage prediction, go to Reverberation-time prediction (Sabine, Eyring, Arau) and Predicting Sound Insulation (EN 12354).
The sound field inside a single room: measured from an impulse response, rated against criterion curves, and predicted from volume and absorption.
- Room Acoustics: impulse-response acquisition (ISO 18233), room parameters (ISO 3382-1/2), open-plan speech metrics (ISO 3382-3) and reverberation-room absorption (ISO 354).
- Room-noise criteria (NC / RC Mark II): the ANSI/ASA S12.2-2019 room-noise ratings with their spectral tags.
- Reverberation-time prediction (Sabine, Eyring, Arau): Sabine, Eyring, Millington-Sette, Fitzroy and Arau-Puchades models with the air-absorption term.
- Sound absorption in enclosed spaces (EN 12354-6): the normative prediction of a room’s total equivalent absorption area and reverberation time.
Airborne and impact insulation: measured in the building, characterised in the laboratory, and predicted from element data.
- Field Insulation Measurement and Ratings: ISO 16283-1/2/3 field measurement, ISO 717-1/2 weighted ratings, ISO 12999-1 uncertainty and the ISO 10052 survey method.
- Laboratory Insulation Measurement: ISO 10140 laboratory characterisation, insulation by intensity (ISO 15186), floor-covering improvement (ISO 16251-1) and flanking (ISO 10848).
- Predicting Sound Insulation (EN 12354): airborne and impact flanking transmission (EN 12354-1/2), façade insulation and outdoor radiation (EN 12354-3/4).
- Dynamic stiffness of resilient materials (EN 29052-1): the load-plate resonance measurement behind every floating-floor prediction.