Soundscape of Transportation: Aircraft

When buildings with indoor habitable spaces are located near active airports, special acoustical design precautions and systems must be included in the design of the building to limit the effects of the aircraft noise in specific rooms inside the building. Site noise levels of aircraft operations are often measured using Day-Night Average Sound Levels or LDN's in dBA. This metric averages the sounds of the aircraft overflights and the background sound over long periods of time. However, when one listens to the sounds heard in a room in a building located near an airport, the sounds of the aircraft operations are not continuous but are rather individual acoustic events. Therefore, the long term average sound level may not accurately reflect the nature of the sounds heard inside the building. A case study of a project near an airport is presented to address the transient nature of the aircraft operations and the types of sounds made by the aircraft. Analysis of the building skin using a computer analysis program is presented to demonstrate why aircraft sounds should be considered as specific acoustic events in the selection of building skin materials to reduce the potential of noise disturbance inside the building.