SOUND QUALITY CONSIDERATIONS IN RATING NOISE FROM HEATING, VENTILATING, AND AIR-CONDITIONING (HVAC) SYSTEMS IN BUILDINGS

摘要

In 1993, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) established a 2-phase program to investigate sound-quality assessments in rating the noise of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, The Ist phase of this program was the acquisition of a database consisting of measurements and tape-recordings of the sound from HVAC systems that had a known complaint history, particularly with respect to low-frequency ''rumble.'' The scope of the initial phase included a preliminary classification of the database according to a number of different acoustical descriptors, The 2nd phase of the ASHRAE program will focus on a psychoacoustical evaluation of the database and a correlation of the subjective judgments of HVAC noise annoyance with objective descriptors. This paper presents analyses of the findings of the Ist phase of the ASHRAE program, The analyses were based on reprocessing the measured acoustical data to identify unique characteristics of HVAC noise spectra having sound-quality attributes corresponding to the reported classifications of rumble, roar, or hiss, An analytical methodology is proposed as a first step toward assessment of the spectra of HVAC system noise in terms of particular sound-quality attributes. (C) 1995 Institute of Noise Control Engineering.