Sound insulation standards for buildings adjacent to urban motorways

Abstract Buildings can be considered as environmental filters and there is plenty of evidence that the majority of our new urban buildings are not providing an acceptable internal noise environment. Since it has proved physically and economically impossible to modify existing buildings to deal with noise from urban motorways, new building standards are required for new buildings near motorways. An investigation into the problem has been carried out in three stages. The first was a study of the amplitude and frequency distribution of traffic noise, the second was to study the attenuation of traffic noise by the building and the third was to study the effect of the transmitted noise on the internal environment. Data obtained is sufficient to make possible the design of new buildings adjacent to urban motorways to achieve a satisfactory standard of noise insulation.