Soundproofing: Design of an Efficient Alternative to Current Materials

In the past decade, major cities have noticed an unsafe rise in noise pollution. This has resulted in an increase in permanent hearing damage as well as an increase in damage to head-related transfer functions. The purpose of this experiment was to design a soundproofing material that was more efficient at blocking sound than current acoustic materials. To do this, the sound intensity traveling through the five most common commercial materials as well as two self-designed materials was measured. The self-designed materials were a combination of mineral wool and fiberglass cloth in a layered and stacked design. It was hypothesized that at least one of the self-designed materials would be more efficient at reducing sound pressure level measured inside an airtight box than the commercial materials would be. Each material was put through a series of tests, including a 7 Pure Tones test and a 60-second classroom scene. The data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. The analysis displayed that the mean dB level for the self-designed materials was lower than the commercial materials. The one-way ANOVA revealed a significant difference in the amount of sound blocked by the different materials as the p-value of \u3c 0.001 is less than the alpha value of 0.05, allowing the null hypothesis of no difference to be rejected. The Tukey test revealed that the self-designed materials blocked significantly more sound than the commercial materials. These findings suggest that the self-designed material is more efficient at blocking sound than current acoustic materials