Reduction of external noise by building facades: tolerance of standard EN 12354-3

The European standard EN 12354-3 describes a calculation model designed to estimate the reduction of outdoor sound by facades of buildings. The accuracy of the prediction method is not specified in the standard. In this paper, the tolerance of the method is studied by comparing the calculation results to the laboratory and field measurement results of different types of facades. For the weighted sound reduction index, the mean and standard deviation of the difference between the calculated and measured values of nineteen facades is 0.3±0.4 dB in laboratory conditions. In field conditions, the mean and standard deviation of the difference between the calculated and measured values of twelve facades is 3.8±3.8 dB. The tolerance is considerably larger compared to the laboratory measurements because the sound insulation of the single building facade elements have been evaluated based on the empirical estimations and not on measurement results.