Sound insulation

A nuisance during both day and night, noise pollution is a serious problem that can be eradicated with a simple solution. By designing the appropriate acoustic climate and noise transmission that suits each space according to your preference during the planning stage, you won’t have to worry about noise once construction is complete.

Most importantly, two mechanisms need to be taken into account - the sound transmission from one environment to another and the sound reverberation and reflection.

Sound Transmission

There are two commonly used techniques when it comes to isolating acoustic namely:

• Mass Law: The heavier the weight of the walls, the better the isolation of acoustic.
• Mass-Spring-Mass: By creating an air space between two walls, the surface mass and weight is 10 times lesser. To improve the noise reduction index, the air space can be filled with lightweight porous insulation material such mineral wool as well.

At Gyproc our acoustic products and systems use the Mass-Spring-Mass technique as it is the most effective one when it comes to reducing noise transmission.

The soundproofing of an environment is measured via two indicators - Rw (Weighted Sound Reduction Index) and STC (Sound Transmission Class).

The test for both indicators are done within a lab to measure airborne sound transmission in interior partitions, ceiling, floors, doors, windows and exterior walls configuration.

While STC is used to measure internal sound transmissions such as the human voice (high frequency), Rw on the other hand is used to rate the attenuation of external low frequency noise such as traffic.

Any insulator that has a high STC number means that its efficient. For instance loud speeches can fairly audible at STC 30 but at STC 60 most sounds are inaudible.

Gyproc has developed several system solutions to prevent sound transmission and improved noise insulation such as the GypWall® ROBUST System which features DuraLine® PLUS 19 mm board with stone wool on GypFrame® metal framing. This system is able to provide insulation up to STC 45.

Sound Reverberation and Reflection

Sound reflection or echo can be reduced by improving the walls and ceiling sound absorption performance. By doing this it improves the sound intelligibility and comfort within an enclosed space.

Two indicators, namely RT 60 for the reverberation and NRC (Noise Reduction Coefficient), are used to calculate the sound absorption of a material.

The sound absorption does not die away fast in a room or space that has good acoustic and RT 60 has been defined as the standard reverberation time for any sound to die away. This means the lower the RT 60 is, the faster the sound will die away.

NRC meanwhile assesses how absorptive a material is. For instance, a material with NRC 0.80 will absorb 80% of the sound that it comes in contact with it and will reflect 20% of that sound back into the space.

At Gyproc, we have developed Gyptone® BIG solutions to not only improve the sound absorption within a space but to also meet different acoustic requirements.