Mechanical Background Sound in Exam Rooms
January 2010 held a highly anticipated milestone for acoustical consultants. The definitive guide called 2010 FGI/ASHE Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities has a greatly expanded acoustics section in this year’s edition. The section went from a solitary partition transmission loss table in prior issues to an eighty page guideline that comprehensively covers exterior noise, acoustical finishes, background noise, sound isolation, vibration, sound masking systems, audio systems and alarms. As a result, acoustical consultants are hoping that architects and engineers will appreciate the breadth and importance of acoustics and consequently incorporate acoustical design early in a project when it is most cost effective. (more)
Anechoic Chambers – What They’re All About
So what in the world are anechoic chambers? In short, they are the consultant’s and manufacturer’s best friend when it comes to acoustics. Anechoic chambers are primarily used for a variety of acoustical measurements that determine just how much noise a product is making. These chambers are most notable for their strange appearance… their foam filled walls, ceilings, and sometimes floors of spikes look a bit like a Nerf torture chamber; if you filled them with plastic balls they’d be a hit attraction at your local Chuck E Cheese. But alas the soft spikes are not meant for harm or play but rather to absorb as much sound as possible, so that you can measure the true sound emitted or reflected off of whatever noise source you are interested in. (more)
Noise Isolation for Hospital Mechanical Rooms
Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities have requirements for large volumes of ventilation and strict control of airflow, and the greater the airflow, the greater the potential for noise. Building mechanical services equipment, fans, pumps, cooling, and heating equipment are all sources of high noise levels. When Acoustics By Design works on a new hospital, we typically expend half of our effort on attenuating building mechanical systems noise. In order to avoid the need for extensive noise and vibration isolating constructions, project designers and engineers should pay careful attention to mechanical room sizes and locations during schematic design. Here are some issues to address early on… (more)
New FGI Guidelines Turn Down the Volume on Health Care Acoustics
The 2010 FGI (Facility Guidelines Institute) Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities was published this month and adopted as building code by most states. The new guidelines are the culmination of over five years of collaborative work by researchers, architects, engineers, and acoustical consultants to solve the problems of speech privacy and excessive noise in hospitals. The guidelines are effective immediately for the design of all healthcare facilities. For perspective, consider the 2006 Guidelines which mandated single patient rooms in hospitals. As a result, single patient rooms are the absolute standard in healthcare design today. This was an overnight seismic shift in policy that affected all healthcare building projects. Well, the 2010 Guidelines are no different in their sweeping reforms, addressing a whole new dimension of healthcare design, namely: acoustics, noise, and HIPAA speech privacy laws. (more)
Tunnel Vision | Highway Traffic Noise Wall Barriers
On a recent trip to Chicago, my wife and I were thankful for all the new traffic lanes recently completed. I can remember when the trip back home to my folks took an extra couple of hours if I got stuck in all the traffic. But thankfully, with the new highway renovations, we’ve actually had some easy trips with no more traffic backups. Of course, our easy traveling must come at a cost. High density population areas are often encroached upon by the infrastructure needed to support them. In our case, the highways got a lot bigger with more lanes but that meant that they were even closer to the houses and neighborhoods that we drove through. (more)
Wind Turbine Noise | Residential Vs. Commercial
Who Can See the Wind?
(by Christina Georgina Rossetti)
Who can see the wind? Neither you nor I
But when the leaves are trembling
The wind is passing by!
Who can see the wind? Neither I nor you
But when the trees are bending low
The wind is passing through!
As this children’s poem points out, the wind’s affect on the surrounding environment is a beautiful thing. But if you live near one of the many “wind farms” popping up all over the country, you may disagree. If that’s you, then “seeing the wind” means 400 foot tall wind turbines interrupting your landscape, and “hearing the wind” may mean loud “whirring” and “whoosh” sounds keeping you awake at night. (more)
Psychoacoustics: Annoyance from Tonal vs. Broadband Sounds
For today’s topic, let’s think of driving our car with the wind rushing by, when all of a sudden our attention is drawn by that annoying squeak coming from the dashboard. The changing of the squeak with time was the topic of a recent blog, but this time we’ll examine its tonal nature. (more)
Healthcare Study Links Noise to Patient Satisfaction
For years, the healthcare industry has used patient satisfaction surveys to gauge hospital performance and to identify ways for improving the healing environment. And the industry’s standard surveyor, Press Ganey Satisfaction Surveys, has always shown the number one patient complaint to be “noise in or around the room.” As acoustical consultants, we know that noise plays an important role in patient and staff satisfaction, but measuring just how much of an affect has always been difficult. Until now. (more)
If It Sounds Like Noise to You, It May Be “Esion”
Fundamentally, sound is “that which we hear”. What we hear at any given time can greatly influence us. We use sound to communicate, to express warning, fear, pleasure and excitement. Some sounds can relax us and help us fall asleep, while other sounds can distract us and make it more difficult to perform simple tasks. Different sounds can be soothing and pleasing or annoying and irritating. Accordingly, determining “What is sound?” and “What is noise?” can become a highly subjective task. As engineers and scientists, it’s our job to generate generalized models that have a high level of correlation to humans (or to specific populations). (more)
My Scarlet Letter | Distractions in the Classroom
At Acoustics By Design we talk a lot about standards. Sometimes, the standards are hidden behind terms like design goals, baseline design, or even ordinances and specifications… But they are all standards. The reality is almost all aspects of our lives are governed by standards; regardless of how well they work or how well we adhere to them, we still use them in decision making. (more)
College Campuses and Student Union Acoustics
At Acoustics By Design, we regularly consult on the design of College and University buildings including classroom buildings, dormitories, athletic facilities, performing arts buildings, libraries, research buildings, and student centers. These numerous building types result in our needing to address a myriad of acoustic and vibration issues. Many student centers and student unions face a similar problem: loud noise from the commercial kitchens inhibit the relaxed social environment for the students. Universities want their student unions to be a center for campus life and activity, and if the student center is too loud to provide the desired environment, students will inevitably congregate elsewhere. (more)
Why Courts Need an Expert Witness in Acoustics
Our company president, Kenric Van Wyk, was recently featured in a Wood TV 8 interview as an expert on noise levels. The local NBC affiliate was covering a story on a teenager who had been killed by a train after walking down the tracks while listing to an MP3 player through ear buds. We brought one of our noise meters down to the tracks and made measurements while a train went by, and the story made the evening news. (more)
It’s time for another semester, and I tell my architecture students that if there’s one thing they learn in my acoustics class, it’s that porous absorbers do not block sound. A porous sound absorber, by definition, has many tiny interconnected voids that sound travels through. Fiberglass and open cell foam are examples. The sound wave loses its energy through friction between the air particles and the fibers/void walls of the material it is passing through. (more)
Doggy Daycare Noise Control – Acoustic Roadblocks
Are you planning to open a veterinary hospital? A doggy daycare? A kennel? A private dog park? If so, then make sure that you consider the noise issues ahead of time (i.e., the barking)! Although these types of projects only account for a small portion of our work at Acoustics By Design, we end up assisting with noise control for at least a couple of these animal facilities every year. And when it comes to building the perfect doggy daycare or kennel, there is always a common list of acoustic roadblocks. (more)
Perception Vs. Reality: What Our Ears Hear
It seems like everyone is talking about decibels these days: “5 dB of this” and “3 dB of that.” As acoustical consultants, we hear people using these metrics and often wonder to ourselves, “Do they really know what a decibel is?” Occasionally, someone is brave enough to ask the more important question, “Just how much is a decibel?” The answer to that question is, of course: well, it depends. Are we talking about physical sound levels or perceived sound levels? There is a big difference! (more)
Noise Isolation for Mixed-Use Developments
In the world of architecture, we frequently hear the term “mixed-use development,” and our firm is increasingly called upon to provide mixed-use development acoustical consulting. The term “mixed-use” generally refers to a development that incorporates residential and commercial space in a close-knit fashion. Mixed-use developments have been constructed for centuries, often taking the form of residential space above retail space – such as the shopkeeper living above the shop. As industrialization increased, mixed-use fell out of favor, and segregated land-use became popular. But late in the past century, mixed-use developments resurfaced, often with the intent of revitalizing urban areas and creating walk-able communities – as opposed to communities where a person must drive a car or take some form of public transportation to perform their daily routine. (more)
OSHA, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has long had policies regulating noise in the workplace. Their “Hearing Conservation Program” is designed to protect workers from suffering hearing loss even if they are subject to loud noise exposures over their entire working lifetimes. But navigating the waters of OSHA’s 1910.95 Noise Exposure Standards document can be a difficult (and daunting) task, and many industrial facilities are happy to outsource this task to the nearest hearing protection salesperson. Unfortunately in this case, ignorance isn’t bliss. (more)
How Weather Affects an Outdoor Noise Study
For many years, I worked as an acoustical consultant in Southern California. We had seasons in SoCal, but it took several years before I easily recognized the subtle differences between summer and fall or between winter and spring. Summer brought daytime temperatures in the 80’s while wintertime temperatures tended to range in the upper 60’s. But for the most part, the temperate climate meant that days would be warm, dry, and sunny and nights would be cooler, dry, and cloudless. My point: long term monitoring of outdoor noise levels and sound propagation was easy.
After ten years on the West Coast, I returned to the Midwest to work for Acoustics By Design, Inc., and found myself back in the midst of weather – real weather – blizzards, sticky summers, and thunderstorms. Most people know that weather can influence sound propagation, but by how much? (more)
“…You can’t handle the truth!” If you’re a movie fan, then you probably recognize this line from the 1992 blockbuster, A Few Good Men. Of course, Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) delivered the line in response to Lt. Daniel Kaffee’s (Tom Cruise) questioning in that tense courtroom scene. But in the real world, what happens when a loud outburst like this takes place…in a Courtroom, in a Judge’s Chambers, or in a Jury Room? How is that sound stopped from transmitting into adjacent rooms and hallways? The unfortunate truth is that in many cases, it’s not. (more)
The Wailing Industrial Demon Next Door
I am not about to compose a post vilifying the American industrial complex; I’m only expressing the attitude of many people that I come across who live near a noisy factory, processing plant, scrap yard, or other type of industrial facility. Perhaps in some cases, criticism by nearby residents is justified, but usually it is not, and often it is avoidable. Multiple times every year I am called in to assess industrial noise and vibration emissions to residential communities. Often I am hired by the company, sometimes by the local government, and occasionally by a residential group. And by the time I get involved, edgy relations have frequently devolved into contentious confrontations, accusations of purposeful illegalities, and claims of ill health due to noise. (more)
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