Hong Kong is a densely populated city with a number of residential complexes built near railway line. The deficiency of housing supply in Hong Kong also triggers need to develop new area including those nearby existing railway line. These railway lines are either built long time ago or with no planned noise sensitive uses nearby at the time of design and construction so that at-source noise mitigation is lacking. Residents nearby are exposed to railway noise which will affect their well-being. Not much of the acoustic performance of balcony designs (which is quite a typical feature equipped in new housing development in Hong Kong) has been revealed. In attempt to shed light on the effectiveness of acoustic balconies, this study focuses on evaluating the noise reduction performance (transmission loss) of different balcony designs by employing International test method in compliance with Organization for Standardization (ISO). Three types of balcony designs have been considered- balcony with single swing door, unequal and equal double swing doors. The acoustic performance of the three balconies in terms of railway noise transmission loss has been compared with each other. Overall, the test result implies that the noise reduction performance of an acoustic balcony is affected by its door type (i.e. single swing, double swing door) with respect to different orientation to the railway noise source and this has provided us a new insight on the design of acoustic balcony when it comes to building projects.
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