3 Basic acoustics
Part 2
Sound isolation
It was stated in the first part of this chapter that the heavier a wall is the better it is at preventing airborne sound from travelling through it. Strictly we should talk not about the weight, but the mass/unit area, using units such as kg/m2 – in other words the mass of a square metre of the wall's surface.
The graph in Figure 3.5, known as The Mass Law, shows the approximate relationship between reduction in sound transmission and mass/unit area of the wall. This is only an approximate relationship as there are various lightweight structures consisting of two or more leaves of material which combine to give far better sound isolation than the combined weight (mass) of the leaves would suggest.
Sound ...
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