An Evaluation of the Railway Noise Reduction Performance of Different Balcony Door Designs in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a densely populated city with a number of residential complexes built near traffic roads. In view of the close proximity to the traffic, residents are exposed to traffic noise which will affect their well-being. However, not much of the acoustic performance of balcony designs has been revealed. In attempt to shed light on the effectiveness of acoustic balconies in Hong Kong, this study focuses on evaluating the noise attenuation of different balcony designs by employing International Organization for Standardization (ISO) test method. Three types of balcony designs have been considered- balcony with single swing door, double swing doors and sliding door design. The acoustic performance of the three balconies has also been compared with each other and the result shows that the one with sliding door has the best noise reducing performance. Overall, the test result implies that the noise attenuation effect of an acoustic balcony is significantly affected by its door type (i.e. single swing, double swing or sliding) and this has provided us a new insight on the design of acoustic balcony when it comes to building projects.