Evaluation Method for Façade Acoustic Insulation for a Corner Room: Discussion on the Results Obtained as a Function of the Source Position

The appropriate acoustic insulation project of building façades is of importance for the design of highly comfortable living environments. In some countries, national regulations require maximum noise levels inside rooms, or minimum sound insulation limits, to be respected. The acoustic insulation design of a façade is usually performed according to the ISO 12354-3 standard, which presents a calculation method based on the geometry of the room, the shape of the façade, the areas and the acoustic performances of the individual elements. The prescribed limits must be experimentally verified according to methods derived from international standards. However, the current versions of such standards do not provide details on how to perform the measurements and the calculation of the sound insulation for corner rooms. An important remark is that, depending on the position of the sound source used for the measurements, different results of the standardized sound insulation are obtained. This article proposes a new method for calculating the façade insulation of corner rooms by introducing the acoustic attenuation due to the diffraction of the corner and the distance of the sound source from the façades, estimated through simulations and experimentally validated.