NOICE CONTROL OF

BUILDINGS
Guided by Presented by
Mrs. Susan K Thomas Sadiya A
Assistant Professor CE 7A
Roll no : 7130
Department of Civil Engineering Register No : YCE17CE065
YCET, Kollam
CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• ASSESSMENT OF GREEN PRODUCTS
• GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS FOR NOISE CONTROL
• SOUND ABSORPTION
• AIRBORNE SOUND INSULATION
• IMPACT SOUND INSULATION
• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCE
INTRODUCTION
• Many currently used acoustic materials cannot be considered
sustainable 
• Some of them can be harmful for human health. 
• Mineral wools are widely used for thermal and sound insulation, but
their fibers, when inhaled, can lay down in the lung alveoli, and can
cause skin irritation. 
• Hence such materials must be adequately overlaid if directly exposed
to the air. 
• Moreover they can pulverize and are not resistant to water, oil and
chemical agents. 
CONTD...
• In the last years a great attention has been focused on
“green” materials, especially in the building sector. 
• Many research centers have developed new sustainable materials, in
many cases with interesting acoustical properties. 
• Also the public sector started to consider these materials
• An increasing attention has been turned to natural fibers as alternatives
to synthetic ones
• Natural fibers have very low toxicity and their production processes can
contribute to protect the environment. 
• Recycled materials can even be regarded as a sustainable alternative, as
they contribute to lower waste production and use of raw materials
ASSESSMENT OF GREEN PRODUCTS
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
• analyses the potential impacts deriving from the entire life history of
a product (from cradle to grave).
• LCA analysis results are available as “ecoprofiles”
• Ecoinvent is a Swiss LCA database which takes into account various
impact assessment results
• A comparison based on the Ecoinvent database between the
environmental impacts of some traditional and natural sound
insulation materials from cradle to grave.
• BRE Eco-Profiles assign a score to a product or a process by weighting
normalized impacts on climate change, acid deposition,
eutrophication, eco-toxicity, ozone depletion, mineral extraction,
fossil fuel extraction, human toxicity, waste disposal, transport
pollution
• Eco-indicator ’99 (NL) supplies a final score by weighting various
potential damages: to human health
• Two well-known labels concerning green products are Natureplus and
Ecolabel
• Nature plus seal of quality is only awarded to products that comprise
a proportion of at least 85 % renewable and/or mineral raw materials
• currently no sound or thermal insulating material has been awarded
with ECOLABEL
GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE
MATERIALS FOR NOISE CONTROL 
• many new materials for noise control as alternatives to the traditional
ones have been proposed 
• divided into two main categories: - 
natural materials
recycled materials
• There is a great variety of natural fibres proposed for thermal and
acoustical applications
• most of them are commercially available such as coconut, kenaf,
hemp, mineralized wood
• Less treated natural materials perform higher in energy saving
• native materials have to be preferred to reduce transport energy.
• Natural fibres have negative impact as far as climate change due to
CO2 absorption during the growth of the plant. 
• vegetal fibres are more subject to fungal and parasites attack and are
less resistant to fire than mineral fibres. 
• The non-toxicity of the chemical products used for cultivation must be
taken into account too
• Many recycled materials, such as waste rubber, metal shavings,
plastic, textile agglomerates can be used to prepare acoustic
materials.
• It can be useful to mix various recycled materials of different
granulometries to obtain the desired performance
SOUND ABSORPTION 
• Natural fibers are generally good absorbers
• natural materials as kenaf, flax, sisal, hemp, cork, sheep wool,
bamboo or coconut fibers show good absorbing performance and can
therefore be used as sound absorbers in room acoustics and noise
barriers
• Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) is an average of how absorptive is a
material at four frequencies (250, 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz) and is here
used for a comparison of the various materials.
• bamboo and sisal fibers show an absorption coefficient at 1000 Hz
and more very close to the one of glass fibers (more than 0,90). 
• Kenaf panels show an absorption coefficient higher than 0.80 above
500 Hz .
• Coconut fibers panels have an absorption peak of about 0,80 at 1000
Hz [16]
• flax panels the peak reaches 0,90 at 800 Hz
• sheep wool panels the peak is 0,90 at 3000 Hz. 
• Vegetable wastes such as grass, pine or gorse leaves, corn cobs, used
in sandwich panels, have an absorption coefficient similar to
polyurethane foam or mineral wool
• Reed matting has been recently proposed for absorption applications, with
excellent performance at medium-high frequencies
• Expanded clay shows good sound absorption performance in a wide
frequency range (higher than 0,80 in the range 500- 5000 Hz)
• The recycled material mostly used to correct the sound environment in
enclosed spaces is cellulose obtained from used newspapers, added with
flame retardants and biocides
• Wet cellulose fibers are generally sprayed directly on walls or ceilings and
their sound absorption properties are even better than those of mineral
wool absorption coefficient is over 0,70 in a significant frequency range
(500-1000 Hz).  
• Other promising materials are metal shavings and textile
agglomerates
• Rubber crumbs are good acoustic materials with a broadband
absorption spectrum and are particularly suitable for traffic noise
barriers, also due to their durability
• Cold extrusion processes have been recently proposed to obtain porous
materials from recycled carpet waste
• Polyester fibrous materials, made from recycled plastic bottles (PET),
have been recently investigated
• Environmental control operates at the interface between a building’s
physical and technical systems and its human occupants
• Poor attention to detail in building controls is a common symptom of an
incomplete design and specification process 
• Manufacturers find it difficult to invest in suitable new or modified
products 
AIRBORNE SOUND INSULATION
• Out of many acoustical insulation flax, coconut, cotton, sheep wool
and kenaf mats are the most present on the market
• Their sound and thermal insulation performance are in many cases as
good as those of traditional materials 
• studies have demonstrated that the sound insulation of double-leaf
walls with low density animal wool or heavy vegetal wool is equal or
better than the one of walls with mineral wool or polystyrene of the
same thickness
• Loose-fill cellulose fibres and batts made of cellulose or flax fibres in
timber frame walls showed the same airborne insulation of glass wool.
• Also mineralized wood panels with magnesite or Portland concrete
are used for sound insulation 
• Dry loose cellulose fibers are already commonly used for thermal and
acoustical insulation
• obtained from recycled newspapers, it appears to match energy and
raw materials savings and health issues
IMPACT SOUND INSULATION
• most common use for many natural materials like cork, coconut fibers,
wood, wool
• Resilient layers made of natural materials can be very good for floating
floors to increase impact sound insulation
• Recycled rubber layers made of waste tyres granules are an interesting
alternative to traditional materials
• recycled carpet wastes are interesting materials as far as impact sound
insulation
• The acoustic properties of these underlay materials compare favorably
with those of commercially available ones
• Another proposed material is EVA (Ethylene-vinyl Acetate
Copolymers) residues employed in the manufacturing of shoes soles
• wood tailings cork shavings and natural wool has the aptitude to keep
acoustical performance nearly constant in time
CONCLUSION
• The interest in the acoustic performance of green and sustainable materials
seems to be increasing
• related researches have been recently published in International Journals and in
the Proceedings of International Conferences
• these materials show many advantages
• They generally have a lower environmental impact then conventional ones,
though sustainability must be analysed
• Also the total energy demand is generally lower, but it has to be accurately
evaluated
• many of these materials are currently available on the market at competitive
prices
• Acoustical sustainable materials, either natural or made from recycled
materials, are quite often a valid alternative to traditional synthetic
materials
• Airborne sound insulation of natural materials such as flax or recycled
cellulose fibres is similar to the one of rock or glass wool
• Many natural materials (bamboo, kenaf, sisal, coco fibres) show good
sound absorbing performance
• cork or recycled rubber or polymers layers can be very effective for
impact sound insulation
• These materials also show good thermal insulation properties, are
often light and they are not harmful for human health
• However there is a need to complete their characterization, and
evaluate their actual sustainability.
REFERENCE
• F. Asdrubali, “Survey on the acoustical properties of new sustainable materials
for noise control”, Proc.of Euronoise 2006, Structured Session Sustainable
Materials for Noise Control, Tampere, Finland, 30 May– 1 June 2006
• www.ecoinvent.ch.
• V. Desarnaulds et Al., “Sustainability of acoustic materials and acoustic
characterization of sustainable materials”, Proc. of ICSV12, Lisbon, Portugal,
2005.
• http://cig.bre.co.uk/envprofiles.
• http://www.pre.nl/eco-indicator99/default.htm.
• http://www.natureplus.org/