Nrc-Irc Flanking Sound Transmission Facility

Walls and floors evaluated using ASTM laboratoiy test methods are built in structural isolation to evaluate direct transmission. However, in real buildings, junctions between walls, floors, enable structure borne vibration to be transmitted around the nominally separating element. This 'flanking' transmission reduces apparent the sound isolation effectiveness of walls and floors in real world settings but is not accounted for in the ASTM laboratory methods. National Research Council persons (T. Estabrooks, B. Fitzpatrick, R. Halliwell, F. King, D. MacMillan, T. Nightingale, and D. Quirt) recently designed and built a flanking facility to investigate how flanking paths affect the sound insulation performance of building systems (coupled wall and floor elements). This paper describes some of the key features of the facility that is unique to the world. This is the second paper in a suite of five that examine flanking.