Comparative study of different programs for sound insulation calculations

Engineering programs for calculating sound insulation in wooden buildings are a shortage, especially when it comes to wooden structures. There are some possibilities today to calculate field values using commercial programs following ISO 12354. However, detailed calculations for each construction part are sometimes crucial to optimize correctly, specifically for CLT or wood beam structures since they are far more complex than traditional concrete structures. Now, some programs are available on the market to calculate sound insulation for CLT structures. StoraEnso offers "Calculatis" online for free, and Marshall Day Acoustics provides "Insul 10". In short, the company Sonusoft will release a software called "Acoulatis". These three programs have slightly different approaches, and their capability to calculate various wall and floor structures differs. Nevertheless, the different programs are all limited to walls or floors construction parts, e.g. the outcome is Rw and Ln,w including spectrum adaptation terms, e.g. junctions are not included. In this paper, a comparison is made using the three different programs, including comparisons to measured values when available.