Acoustical Benefits of Plenum Window as Facade Device - A Parametric Study

Rapid population growth and economic development have led to serious noise pollution in densely populated cities. As the noise level keeps on increasing, opening windows for natural ventilation has become nearly not possible, especially in urbanized residential areas. Plenum window is the modification of a partially opened double glazing window system to the staggered inlet and outlet window openings which can provide better sound protection to the building and at the same time can allow certain degree of natural ventilation across it. A series of full-scale laboratory measurements were carried out in order find out the relationship between the important parameters and the acoustical performance of plenum window. From the measurement results, plenum window can attenuated at least 10 dBA traffic noise without treatment inside the window system. It is found that window opening sizes and overlapping width have significant effects on the acoustical protection of plenum window.