Quantifying sound transmission of building structures for optimization in early-stage design

Technological advancements in computational building modeling have enabled designers to conduct simulations at the component level. With the evolution of parametric modeling, designers can evaluate multiple design options and identify the best performing solutions before expending resources on physical testing and eventual construction. However, to conduct design space exploration or optimization, an objective function is necessary to evaluate performance. While defined objectives exist for design goals such as sustainability, energy usage, structural performance, and daylighting, there does not yet exist an encompassing objective that can accurately quantify the sound transmission of structures in building design. This paper proposes four transmission rating strategies that can describe air-borne and impact performance of floors, walls, or other acoustic barriers. The approaches consider air-borne and structure-borne sound for four floor constructions, revealing strengths and weaknesses across the methods. Implementation of the approaches in an optimization framework is discussed, along with practical methods for optimizing the objectives in early-stage design.