Architecture and Building Acoustics

We spend about 90% of our time indoors, and consequently the acoustic quality of buildings is vital to well-being. Our research looks at all different building types: theatres, recording studios, schools [1], homes, open plan offices etc. This includes work on archaeoacoustics, the sound of prehistoric spaces such as Stonehenge [2]. Our research:

• Reduces noise indoors to improve quality of life.
• Improves speech intelligibility of announcements to improve accessibility.
• Develops absorbing and diffusing treatments for rooms.
• Develops new approaches for measuring and predicting how sound moves within rooms and buildings.
• Furthers understanding of how people respond to sound indoors.
• Creates new measurement methods that then get incorporated into international standards (e.g. BS ISO 17497-2:2012; ISO 140-18: 2006 and BS EN 15657-1:2009)

We are also a test house for building acoustics and hold UKAS accreditation for many standard methods.

Current and future research focus includes:

• Modern Methods of Construction
• Advancing measurement and simulation methods to build Digital Twins
• Addressing consequences of net-zero, e.g., air source heat pump noise
• Sustainable metasurfaces and metamaterials for architecture

Contact

Professor Trevor Cox at t.j.cox@salford.ac.uk.

References

[1] Shield, B., Conetta, R., Dockrell, J., Connolly, D., Cox, T. and Mydlarz, C., 2015. A survey of acoustic conditions and noise levels in secondary school classrooms in England. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137(1), pp.177-188.

[2] Cox, T.J., Fazenda, B.M. and Greaney, S.E., 2020. Using scale modelling to assess the prehistoric acoustics of Stonehenge. Journal of Archaeological Science, 122, p.105218.