Measurement Methods Adapted to Wood Frame Lightweight Constructions

Abstract

When building elements of wood-frame lightweight constructions are considered, laboratory acoustic measurement methods have to be rethought. Indeed, because lightweight elements are often highly damped, the vibrational fields are no longer reverberant and existing standards often lose relevance, particularly in the case of mechanical excitation (such as in impact noise measurements or in vibration reduction index measurements of junctions). In this paper, standardized methods are identified or new methods are proposed for characterizing lightweight elements in order to obtain input data for prediction models such as that adapted from the standards EN 12354-1 and −2 and described in a companion paper. Moreover, it is shown that a new parameter (the radiation efficiency) is required when predicting the performance of lightweight buildings. Measurement results are shown for both wall and floor elements and the results are discussed, particularly in comparison with heavy building elements.