Pilkington: turning down the volume with noise control glazing

A quiet life: turning down the volume with noise control glazing
Photo source
www.pilkington.com

Date: 17 June 2019

The glazing specified in the buildings where we live and work can play an important role in reducing the health risk.

As well as exacerbating everyday stress and anxiety, excessive environmental noise can be extremely harmful to our health. Indeed, the World Health Organisation calculates that at least one million healthy years are shaved off all those living in western European countries each year because of traffic-related noise alone.

The glazing specified in the buildings where we live and work can play an important role in reducing this health risk.

As more and more of us live and work in congested urban spaces – which are only likely to get noisier – blocking out exterior noise is set to become ever-more important. For example, estimates suggest that Heathrow’s planned third runway will add 300 extra flights to our skies a day, greatly increasing noise pollution across the South East in particular.

A quiet life: turning down the volume with noise control glazing

Calculating noise reduction

The most common way we describe the sound insulation of glass is by the weighted sound reduction Rw, in decibels (dB), which incorporates correction for the ear’s response.

However, we can make adjustments to the Rw value to take account characteristics of particular sound spectra, for example Ctr if the noise is predominately low frequency. Where urban road traffic noise is of a particular concern, this means that sound insulation can be better described in terms of Rw + Ctr.

In simple terms, the larger the value of Rw or, specifically for low frequency noise, Rw + Ctr, the less noise will be transmitted through the glass. Acoustic performance can be optimised by making the glass panes as thick as possible, using laminated glass and – in double glazing units – installing panes of different thickness to offset resonance effects.

 

The sound of silence

Acoustic performance can be further enhanced by specifying an acoustic laminated glass such as Pilkington Optiphon™, which uses a special PVB (PolyVinyl Butyral) interlayer to block out sound.

This product can achieve Rw values in excess of 50 dB and, in busy town and city centres, Rw + Ctr values up to 47 dB, greatly reducing the damaging effect of noise pollution caused by traffic, trains at low speeds and industrial processes emitting mainly low and medium frequency noise.

Protecting against noise pollution is an increasingly important part of a building’s role and, as glass continues to make up more of the built environment, noise control glazing will be crucial in keeping building occupants safe and sound.

You can find out more about Pilkington's range of innovative noise control products here.

Written by Phil Brown, European regulatory marketing manager

600450 Pilkington: turning down the volume with noise control glazing glassonweb.com

Others also read

Folienwerk Wolfen GmbH, with their premium laminating film evguard®, are a proud sponsor of the Glass Performance Days in June, 2023 in Tampere, Finland.
EVA is a polymeric material used in glass lamination. It’s a recent solution designed to create a performing product in terms of composition, durability, aesthetics, and processing costs.
Many architects and designers are revolutionizing glass architecture, just selecting coloured interlayers in order to project creative solutions, like suggestive plays of lights and colours, and special atmospheres.
GlassParts has been appointed as the exclusive distributor of Folienwerk Wolfen in the UK and Ireland for evguard® and evguard® MPE.
In this video, Jay-B explains the threat of building glazing to migratory birds and a solution with our new BirdSecure interlayer.
A new success with 100% Made in Italy award by the Institute for the Protection of Italian Producers, the one only accredited national Organization.

Add new comment

From industry

İçmeler Mah. D-100 Karayolu Cad. No:44A,
34947 Tuzla,/İstanbul
Turkey

Ottergemsesteenweg 707-Zuid
9000 Ghent
Belgium

No. 160 Yichuan Rd.,
Jiaonan Shi
Qingdao Shi
Shandong Sheng, 266000
China

NEWS RELATED PRODUCTS

SATINAL SPA
Hornos Industriales Pujol
Hornos Industriales Pujol