Acoustic performance of door and wall sets separated by entrance hall

Abstract The set of walls and doors separated by communal circulation areas in residential buildings began to have their acoustic performance evaluated since the Brazilian standard NBR 15575 was implemented. The aim of this paper is to determine the influence of the characteristics of the constructive elements - doors and corridors between housing units - on the insulation of the air noise of the set of walls and doors separated by the entrance hall. Three buildings were chosen and a series of acoustic performance tests were performed on the site, covering several situations. Devices were used to seal the door gaps in order to verify the improvement of the performance of the system. The results point to loss of acoustic performance with larger gaps between the door and the floor. In addition, a relationship was detected between the reverberation time of the circulation environments and the distance between the entrance doors of the housing units. The conclusion of the study is that frontal alignment of the entrance doors of the different housing units and corridors with high reverberation time as well as badly sealed gaps reduce the acoustic insulation efficiency of the set of doors and wall facing communal circulation areas in residential buildings.