International recognition for joint AES/UoC project

A scientific paper describing work undertaken as part of a joint AES/UoC research project has received international recognition, being accepted for publication in esteemed scientific journal Applied Acoustics. The article details work undertaken as part of the first phase of a project which studied the variation due to quality of workmanship in the sound insulation offered by nominally identical walls. This work is of fundamental importance to the building industry, especially in light of the current effort to revise the New Zealand Building Code, a move that will likely introduce more stringent requirements for on-site testing.

It has long been known that, when built on-site, the performance of noise control walls can vary dramatically. This is of relevance when deciding how many of the walls in a building must be tested to verify compliance with a given noise control standard. However, many factors other than quality of workmanship are known to cause a significant variation in the sound insulation measured for any given wall. These include factors such as variation in material properties, variation in the size of the walls, variation in the geometry of the rooms on each side of the walls, and even the person doing the testing. Though an innovative testing program, this work was able to deduce the effect of variation solely due to workmanship, from amongst these other variables.

Since its launch in 1968, Applied Acoustics, the journal in which the paper will appear, has been publishing high quality research papers concerned with application of acoustics in its widest sense. As an established international vehicle for the reporting of applications in acoustics, Applied Acoustics provides state-of-the-art coverage of research findings for engineers and scientists involved with the design of buildings with active and passive noise control and with structural and computational acoustics and vibrations. Papers must undergo an arduous peer-review program before acceptable into the journal.

Copies of the article are available through the publishers at www.elsevier.com, by searching for the authors name – J. Trevathan.