Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Acoutect (A sound fundament for our future buildings)
Período documentado: 2019-01-01 hasta 2020-12-31
To ensure a healthy environment for people living and working in buildings, research and engineering in the area of building acoustics is essential. Developments in modern building concepts, such as sustainable low energy consuming buildings, buildings with lightweight materials and open plan working environments, as well as the need to build in extremely noisy areas, require involvement of acoustic experts in order to successfully (re)design buildings without negatively impacting upon people’s health and well-being. Taking up current and future acoustic challenges requires innovative solutions based on a thorough understanding and mastering of modern methods and tools, as well as a holistic acoustic approach involving acoustic design, products and subjective evaluation. However, in the complex field of building acoustics, research activities typically are not holistic and have become slightly marginalized. As a consequence, there is a lack of building acoustics experts. The main goal of Acoutect is establishing a training network in the field of building acoustics:
1. Training Programme. Establishing a long-lasting European-wide programme on building acoustics (https://assaeindhoven.org)
2. Research Programme. Launching an innovative research programme. Acoutect has delivered excellent career perspectives to highly-educated building acoustics researchers.
Acoutect project has impacted the career perspectives of the ESRs in the short- and long-term. In this respect, the ESRs have:
● Participated in frontier research projects, in particular their own project;
● Worked with and gained expertise from leading scientists in the field of building acoustics, who have offered state-of-the-art equipment and facilities;
● Gained complementary, intersectoral and innovative training in all building acoustic sub-fields and transferable skills;
● Undergone multi-disciplinary and intersectoral training by working in the Demonstrators (including secondments), preparing them for career paths in both academic and industrial fields, as well as the public and private sectors;
● Developed their own perspective by working at different locations, with different people and with different facilities in an international setting;
● Gained experience with valuable management roles, both related to their own projects as within the various management boards of Acoutect;
● Built a sustainable network for future collaborations, from the other ESRs, project participants, visiting scholars, the network of host institutes, external attendees of the Acoutect summer schools and attending and contributing to conferences;
● Participated in a scientific training programme, as well as gained training on transferable skills as entrepreneurship.
1. Training Programme. Establishing a long-lasting European-wide programme on building acoustics (https://assaeindhoven.org)
2. Research Programme. Launching an innovative research programme. Acoutect has delivered excellent career perspectives to highly-educated building acoustics researchers.
Acoutect project has impacted the career perspectives of the ESRs in the short- and long-term. In this respect, the ESRs have:
● Participated in frontier research projects, in particular their own project;
● Worked with and gained expertise from leading scientists in the field of building acoustics, who have offered state-of-the-art equipment and facilities;
● Gained complementary, intersectoral and innovative training in all building acoustic sub-fields and transferable skills;
● Undergone multi-disciplinary and intersectoral training by working in the Demonstrators (including secondments), preparing them for career paths in both academic and industrial fields, as well as the public and private sectors;
● Developed their own perspective by working at different locations, with different people and with different facilities in an international setting;
● Gained experience with valuable management roles, both related to their own projects as within the various management boards of Acoutect;
● Built a sustainable network for future collaborations, from the other ESRs, project participants, visiting scholars, the network of host institutes, external attendees of the Acoutect summer schools and attending and contributing to conferences;
● Participated in a scientific training programme, as well as gained training on transferable skills as entrepreneurship.
Acoutect organized a set of training activities for the ESRs in the form of four summer schools and transferable skills courses. Additionally, Acoutect has organized seven research and demonstrator workshops where the ESRs have periodically presented their progress. The summer schools combined scientific and industrial contents. The main topics of the training activities have been:
- Modern sustainable building concepts
- Drivers and barriers in building concepts
- Teambuilding, leadership and communication
- Building Acoustic prediction methods
- Modern Acoustic consultancy practices
- Presentation skills
- Career orientation and business start-up, entrepreneurship and ethics
- Innovative acoustic materials
- Product development
- Human-related evaluation techniques
- Applied research
The results of Acoutect have been disseminated mainly by scientific communication (peer-review journals or international congresses). There have been 9 scientific peer-review publications and 37 international congress communications from Acoutect researchers. A second mechanism to transfer the research results to a wide audience has been the Acoutect Demonstrators (see the demonstrators' booklets at the project website). Additionally, the Acoutect YouTube Channel is a collection of videos made by the ESRs, presenting current issues on building acoustics. In the channel, they have covered some of the essential concepts of acoustics in the context of building and room acoustics.
Each ESR in Acoutect has carried out an individual research project, most of them towards obtaining a PhD degree. The Research Coordination Group (RCG) monitored periodically the research activities of the ESRs through online meetings organized and moderated by the research WP leaders. During the periodic online meetings the ESRs presented their research progress to the other research WP members promoting cross collaborations.
Work package 4: Design
Within WP4, scientifically followed up by University of Liverpool, the work concerns:
• Hybrid temporal models of the acoustics in open plan spaces.
• Finite difference time domain models for room acoustics and sound insulation.
• Modelling structure-borne sound transmission in lightweight buildings.
• Prediction models for rolling noise in buildings.
• Accurate characterization of materials based on in situ measurements combined with modelling.
Work package 5: Products
Within WP5, scientifically followed up by KU Leuven, the work concerns:
• Develop multifunctional material systems with a focus on façades.
• Development of lightweight and compact solutions for building noise and acoustics problems.
• Validation of time and cost efficient identification approaches to feed CAE models.
Work package 6: Evaluation
Within WP6, scientifically followed up by Aalto University, the work concerns:
• Understand human response to low frequency noise inside housing.
• Invent and construct novel measurement and auralization techniques to study building acoustics.
• Subjectively evaluate floor impact sounds in lightweight buildings.
• Assess the acoustic quality in Life Cycle Assessment as a basis for building certification systems.
• Implement binaural synthesis using Advanced Ray Tracing for moving source or listener.
Work package 7: Demonstrators
The Demonstrators brought together all the different aspects of the project by implementing a holistic approach to solve real-life building acoustic problems. Four demonstrators were defined within the following main topics:
• Lightweight constructions.
• Open plan spaces.
• Multi-story buildings.
• Places for social gathering.
The results of the demonstrators is published on scientific conferences and is made public via booklets at the Acoutect website (http://www.acoutect.eu)
- Modern sustainable building concepts
- Drivers and barriers in building concepts
- Teambuilding, leadership and communication
- Building Acoustic prediction methods
- Modern Acoustic consultancy practices
- Presentation skills
- Career orientation and business start-up, entrepreneurship and ethics
- Innovative acoustic materials
- Product development
- Human-related evaluation techniques
- Applied research
The results of Acoutect have been disseminated mainly by scientific communication (peer-review journals or international congresses). There have been 9 scientific peer-review publications and 37 international congress communications from Acoutect researchers. A second mechanism to transfer the research results to a wide audience has been the Acoutect Demonstrators (see the demonstrators' booklets at the project website). Additionally, the Acoutect YouTube Channel is a collection of videos made by the ESRs, presenting current issues on building acoustics. In the channel, they have covered some of the essential concepts of acoustics in the context of building and room acoustics.
Each ESR in Acoutect has carried out an individual research project, most of them towards obtaining a PhD degree. The Research Coordination Group (RCG) monitored periodically the research activities of the ESRs through online meetings organized and moderated by the research WP leaders. During the periodic online meetings the ESRs presented their research progress to the other research WP members promoting cross collaborations.
Work package 4: Design
Within WP4, scientifically followed up by University of Liverpool, the work concerns:
• Hybrid temporal models of the acoustics in open plan spaces.
• Finite difference time domain models for room acoustics and sound insulation.
• Modelling structure-borne sound transmission in lightweight buildings.
• Prediction models for rolling noise in buildings.
• Accurate characterization of materials based on in situ measurements combined with modelling.
Work package 5: Products
Within WP5, scientifically followed up by KU Leuven, the work concerns:
• Develop multifunctional material systems with a focus on façades.
• Development of lightweight and compact solutions for building noise and acoustics problems.
• Validation of time and cost efficient identification approaches to feed CAE models.
Work package 6: Evaluation
Within WP6, scientifically followed up by Aalto University, the work concerns:
• Understand human response to low frequency noise inside housing.
• Invent and construct novel measurement and auralization techniques to study building acoustics.
• Subjectively evaluate floor impact sounds in lightweight buildings.
• Assess the acoustic quality in Life Cycle Assessment as a basis for building certification systems.
• Implement binaural synthesis using Advanced Ray Tracing for moving source or listener.
Work package 7: Demonstrators
The Demonstrators brought together all the different aspects of the project by implementing a holistic approach to solve real-life building acoustic problems. Four demonstrators were defined within the following main topics:
• Lightweight constructions.
• Open plan spaces.
• Multi-story buildings.
• Places for social gathering.
The results of the demonstrators is published on scientific conferences and is made public via booklets at the Acoutect website (http://www.acoutect.eu)
The outcome of the project beyond the state of the art can be found under the results section of the project's website (http://www.acoutect.eu).