Services Noise Control and Cross-Talk in Curtain Walled Buildings

The usual construction adopted for plant rooms and many of the occupied areas in offices, hotels.hospitals, etc. comprises concrete floors and ceilings with brick or dense concrete block walls built on the solid floor.Aa sound insulation is closely related to the mass per unit area of the barrier constructions this type of building start with the advantage of considerable weight.The old Imperigl Units had a convenient relationship which said "4.5 inch brick = 45 half: a 45 dB"the SI system equivalent of "114nm brick = 220 kg/m -65 dB does not have the same mnemonic effect!Curtain walling systems for buildings are generally of relatively light weight and, importantly, the walling passes the intermediate floors so that a potential gap is left between the walling and the solid floor.Figure 1 shows this principle.