The façade sound insulation and its classification

The sound insulation of façades plays a key role in the improvement of internal living comfort and protection of the inhabitants from the disturbing noise coming from the outside of the buildings. Only in few countries, on-site measurements and evaluations are made, in order to verify the real performance of building façades. Italy is one of them and ITC CNR, the main Italian Building Research Institute, has collected a dataset of such measurement results that can be considered unique of its kind, taking into account that on-site façade sound insulation measurements are less frequent and more complicated than internal sound insulation measurements. Starting from this dataset, all the factors that influence the final performance of the façade are analyzed and in particular the main acoustic and non-acoustic parameters, such as wall structures and glazing layers, window percentage and volume/surface ratio. The internal sound level is evaluated taking into account the contribution of outdoor or neighbor noise.