Tensile Materials / Fabric Membrane / PTFE Acoustical Liner

Acoustical considerations in the design of structures generally center around two areas of concern: How will the structural envelope resist outside noise from entering the interior and how will the interior space perform from a reverberant standpoint?

While these two issues are evaluated together to predict overall performance levels, the considerations for each are quite different.

Reverberation time is directly proportional to room volume, and inversely proportional to absorption. With interior acoustics, short reverberation times are necessary for good speech intelligibility. Small meeting rooms are seldom a problem. However, larger enclosures such as field houses, aquatic centers and stadiums are significantly more difficult to treat effectively.

When dealing with exterior noise isolation, buildings are usually designed to have an overall noise criterion (NC), which prescribes the maximum permissible background noise level for the intended use of the space. The NC level varies from a low of approximately NC-20 in concert halls to a high of approximately NC-50 in sports facilities. Different building shell materials cause different levels of reduction in transmission of exterior noise.

Birdair’s PTFE-coated acoustical membranes performs uncommonly well in sound transmission, creating interior space that conveys acoustics clearly and without obstruction.