Why is sound insulation necessary?
Sound insulation by using Gypsum Board
Sound insulation is very important in creating a comfortable living space. Sound insulation is to shield you from the invasion of sound from the outside. If you live in a space with poor sound insulation performance, you will be inevitably annoyed by the stereo next door, the sound of cars outside, and so on. In addition, in the last few years, as buildings are progressively becoming more and more air-tight, you are more likely to be annoyed by the sound of the next room (music and talking) than sounds coming from outside. Walls with high sound insulation performance are essential for comfortable sleeping and peaceful life!
Volume of sounds in your daily life
The volume of sound is expressed in units of dB (decibel). If we convert the volume of sounds in your daily life to be expressed in numerical values, it will be like this:
How does sound travel?
There are two ways of transmitting sound: "airborne sound" where sound propagates through the air and "structure-borne sound" where sound propagates through the structure of the building (solid matter).
For example, the sound of the washing machine moving can be heard by a person standing in front of the washing machine. This is “airborne sound”. If you lie down and put your ear close to the floor in front of the rotating washing machine, you will hear a loud noise that is different from when you were standing. This sound is transmitted from the foot of the washing machine to the floor, and you can hear it from there. This is “structure-borne sound”.
Under the room with the washing machine, the sound of the washing machine first travels on the floor as vibration, and transmitted to the ceiling of the floor below (structure-borne sound). Then, the ceiling becomes a speaker, radiates the sound, and it is heard by a person in the floor below (airborne sound).
Effect of sound insulation wall
For example, by using the sound insulation wall "A-2000 ・ WI" developed by Yoshino Gypsum, it is possible to reduce the sound of 80 dB (equal to roads with heavy traffic) coming from the next room to 24 dB (equal to rattling sounds of leaves or a quiet night in a residential area). Such performance becomes possible only after efficiently attenuating the airborne sound entering the wall by a special structure.
In general,soundproofing can be divided into four elements.
- Sound insularion(blocking the sound)
- Sound absorption(preventing the sound from reflecting)
- Vibration isolarion(preventing oscillation)
- Vibration damping(quickly stop oscillation)
Places where sound insulation is necessary
Sound insulation performance is necessary for partition walls, corridors of common areas and dwelling units of apartment houses. Besides this, high sound insulation performance is also necessary for walls of music studios, movie theaters (especially multiple-screen movie theaters such as cinema complexes), machine rooms and the like.