Sound transmission across a separating and flanking cavity wall construction

Abstract Two parameters that can be difficult to model accurately for cavity wall constructions are the cavity damping and the foundation coupling. In order to investigate dominant sound transmission paths across masonry cavity wall constructions, measured cavity damping and foundation coupling data have been incorporated in a statistical energy analysis (SEA) model for a test construction in the BRE flanking laboratory. This paper presents measured data to validate the SEA predictions for the direct and flanking transmission paths that were dominant. For the masonry cavity wall construction that was tested, structural coupling due to the separating wall foundations was found to be a dominant path for transmission across the separating cavity wall.