Exploring acoustical approaches for pre-screening the airtightness of building enclosures

Abstract

The air infiltration through the building enclosure plays a significant role in the energy performance of a building and in the ability to obtain comfortable conditions. The building airtightness is typically detected using experimental tools such as blower door devices, together with other approaches such as tracer gas methods. However, the estimation of the building airtightness through these methods can be expensive, time-consuming, and dependent on weather conditions. The importance of a rapid estimation of the air infiltration through a building envelope suggests to search for easier assessing methods. In this paper, the acoustic method as proposed in the ASTM E1186 is considered, and the correlations between the sound transmission loss of several windows and their airtightness levels are explored. The results reveal a poor correlation between the airtightness of the windows and their sound insulation performance. However, the weak relationship discourages the use of simple acoustic approaches based on the simple sound transmission loss assessment and reinforces the need to adopt beamforming techniques for accurate assessments of building enclosure deficiencies.