The contribution of long flanking paths to sound transmission in buildings

Recent developments in calculation models for sound transmission in buildin gs have concentrated on the direct path and the flanking paths that cross o nly one structural joint. However, in real buildings there will be many oth er paths involving transmission across more than 1 structural joint and alt hough these paths individually will be relatively unimportant their overall contribution can be significant. A number of numerical case studies were u ndertaken and it is shown that for many cases these longer paths are togeth er more important than the first order flanking paths which in turn are oft en more important than the direct path. This suggests that although includi ng first order flanking paths into a mathematical model will improve the ag reement between measured and predicted data large errors may still occur if other parts of the building are not included. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Lt d. All rights reserved.