Road traffic noise propagation to an inner yard – Measurements before and after the construction of gap filling buildings

Paper in proceeding, 2009

The propagation of noise to inner yards is a subject of large interest, for instance due to new formulations of noise limits. The presented measurements were made within a larger research programme, in one of its application examples, for which also a perceptual study is ongoing. Here, the propagation of noise from the motorway nearby is investigated using acoustic measurements from both before and after gap filling buildings were constructed. As result of the construction, gaps between a row of housing buildings were sealed by additional housing units thus forming a continuous, tall and thick barrier along the motorway. It is shown that the row of separate buildings with gaps in-between, in the before-study, provided minor shielding of the yard behind, whereas, in the after-study, significantly lower noise levels were found. The reduction due to the gap filling buildings is estimated to reach 8-9 dB at most.