Sound Transmission Loss

The transmission of sound through walls and barriers is an extremely important topic for noise control engineers. In this chapter we examine the basic principles of how sound passes through walls. The primary physical characteristics that influence sound transmission through walls are studied, including the importance of mass and how the bending rigidity degrades the transmission loss at higher frequencies. Because walls can be fairly complicated constructions, the use of transfer matricesTransfer matrices is introduced to enable the prediction of sound transmission lossSound transmission loss in walls having multiple layers.