Quantitative evaluation of airborne sound insulation in ship’s accommodation using large scale noise test facilities

In recent years, the regulation on the airborne sound insulation index has become much more stringent as the increasing demand on the building of low noise vessels. So, some studies have been performed to improve the sound insulation in accommodation spaces. So far, however, the improvement has not been clearly obtained due to the complicated coupling relation between acoustic elements. In this paper, the onboard sound insulation tests for ship’s accommodation spaces were firstly carried out to investigate the acoustic characteristics. Secondly, by using two reverberation rooms and a deckhouse mock-up having the same characteristics as a real ship, the sound transmission loss of cabin structures, such as ceiling, door, floor, and partition wall, were quantitatively evaluated and compared with in-situ test results. Through a series of tests, it was found that the airborne sound insulation in a ship’s accommodation was greatly deteriorated by the door and the partition wall. The main acoustical effects dominating the flanking sound transmission in adjacent accommodation spaces were fully identified.