Determining the airborne sound insulation improvement of thermal cladding systems in combination with heavyweight exterior walls

摘要

Prediction of the sound insulation (SI) of modern thermal insulation systems for exterior walls is considered. These products all have in common a lightweight insulating layer of primarily thermal function (which may consist of a porous or non-porous material), and a weatherproof finish; the systems measured in the laboratory included a grout and skim finish or a prefabricated cladding system. In all cases, a typical heavyweight exterior wall was cladded. Modern examples of such systems are ETICS (External thermal insulation composite systems) and curtain walls. In their simplest form, such cladding systems can be modelled as a spring-mounted mass. However, Austrian standards demand that the spring-mounted layer be combined with structural fixings. In the examined cases sparse distributions (up to 12 connections/m2) of point connections were used. The SI of simplified and typical thermal cladding systems (i.e. with and without structural fixings) were measured in an accredited laboratory facility and these results were compared with a calculation method to determine SI. The possibility of using established methods to determine the coupling loss factors in such combined systems was considered. The structural wall is of heavyweight construction, and the SEA problem can be simplified to a primary path analysis.